


Aftershocks

by PineWreaths



Series: Gravity Scars [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gravity Scars AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:10:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4915522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PineWreaths/pseuds/PineWreaths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They couldn’t believe they’d been upset over just an ornamental unicorn smashing to bits. Not compared to what they lost afterwards. Compared to that, they would have done anything just to erase that day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When he thought back on it, Dipper couldn’t believe they’d been upset over just a fucking ornamental unicorn smashing to bits.

Not compared to what they lost afterwards; Compared to that, Dipper would take a bat to an entire shop of priceless collectibles, just to erase that day, those memories, the feeling of yearning emptiness, for a few fleeting seconds.

 

They had been visiting Aunt Joanne and Uncle Vern for the winter break, as their mom’s sister and brother-in-law lived just an hour or two’s drive from home, on the outskirts of Sacramento. Mabel was feeling especially homesick for some reason, and in addition to her normal contingent of sweaters, craft supplies, and of course her stuffed Waddles toy (The living version was living comfortably on a farm with relatives in southeastern Washington), she had brought her plastic snowglobe from when they turned 10, and her blown-glass unicorn.

The unicorn was pretty, even Dipper had to admit, and shimmered in the bedroom light while casting pink and blue splashes of color on the ceiling and walls. She had carefully arranged it on the shelf overlook the guest room bed, and with her tongue out as she focused, arranged the “Twins Together, Twins Forever” snowglobe next to it. He couldn’t help but laugh as she frowned, removed the snowglobe, shook it, and then carefully replaced it.

She giggled too, shrugging at him, as she sank back onto the bed. Dipper was busy reading one of the Dresden Files, which he found both incredibly engrossing as well as being laughably inaccurate on numerous accounts.  _Well, besides the Sidhe,_  he thought, rubbing his shoulder where an old scar still twinged on some especially cold, wintery nights like this.  _He actually got the damn fae pretty much straight-on, unfortunately._

Aunt Joanne came in to check on them as they sat on their beds, while Mabel was busy fiddling with her DS and swearing about a raccoon. “Alright dears, you need anything else?”

Dipper smiled, shaking his head and giving Mabel a look of twin-telepathy amusement as they said in unison “Thanks Auntie Joe!”

She laughed, and wished them goodnight as she shut the bedroom door. Uncle Vern had work at a shipping company’s warehouse floor, and he had gone to bed hours earlier, after coming in, having a quick meal with them, and then kissing Joanne before heading off to bed. Joanne, however, had retired early, and while she certainly liked Dipper, she and Mabel had been occupied the past week with decorating cookies in the kitchen, making strings of paper advent garlands, and even baking some potato latkes for when Vern’s brother and his kids came to visit for the tail-end of Hanukkah.

All-in-all, Dipper had just sank another two chapters into the book when he felt the headboard behind him vibrate, thumping dully against his head and the wall with a hollow noise. He looked sharply up, and caught Mabel’s eye; She was looking uncertain too, but they heard their aunt and uncle’s bedroom door open and Joanne opened the door, smiling sleepily and reassuringly at them.

“No worries, kids, just a little ‘quake. We get those all the time around here; It’ll pass in a minute here.” She went to shut the door, but stopped, and Dipper could feel something was…wrong, his worry further fueled by his aunt’s hesitance.

The headboard had gone from gentle quiet bumping to a sound like a door slamming, and the lamp on the nightstand was jittering and rattling wildly. There was athunk-tink noise, and there Dipper’s memories slowed into a mockingly casual pace:

The sound of Mabel, gasping as she saw it before he did.

The snowglobe, trailing the golden string they used to hang it on the tree with, their smiling, innocent faces inside tumbling a few inches from his face as the snow inside flurried merrily.

And the unicorn, somersaulting gracefully as it followed the ornament, the light catching it and making it glow and cast the room in a rainbow of light one final time.

Time lurched forward, and the ugly cracking-thump of the snowglobe was followed a heartbeat later by a simultaneous tinkling noise of glass shattering into uncountable pieces and Mabel’s heart-wrenching cry of “ _No!”_ , the sob already audible in the back of the yell as her fingers, outstretched, failed to catch the keepsake.

She sat back, her shoulders beginning to wrack in a sob, as she looked around, despair and terror etched onto her features as the room continued to lurch and shake. Mabel screamed involuntarily as one violent lurch shattered the window in a spray of debris, and outside the sounds of crunching, rumbling, and car alarms echoed throughout the neighborhood.

“Come here darlings, quickly now!” Joanne yelled towards them, her arms open wide even as she looked over her shoulder towards the open master bedroom door.

“Vern?  _VERN? VERN!”_  she screamed as Dipper and Mabel dove towards her arms, and with a snapping noise that sounded like existence being broken over the knee of a god, the center beam of the house snapped, and with a rumble, the twins’ world went dark.

  
  


The cold, harsh light of the morning cast itself on Dip’s face, and he awoke, wondering why the window had been left open and why his blanket was so heavy when it all came rushing back, shocking him awake, his eyes blurring with frantic tears as he said “Mabel?  _Mabel?”_

He could feel his heart skip a beat as he heard a moan and cry of pain from beside him, and straining, he shifted a large swath of drywall that was in the way, the picture frame on it falling to the ground and smashing. He ignored that, and instead dropped to his knees, hugging Mabel to him. Her breathing was shallow, and he could see she had a nasty gouge on her arm, but she was alive, she was alive.

He looked up as he heard quiet sobbing, muted in the oddly-still morning, and he could feel his sister lean herself up, letting out an “Ouch” of pain but turning to look with Dipper in the direction of the crying.

  
  


There, on the other side of what was once a hallway, amidst the wreckage that was once their house, Joanne was on her knees, her arms wrapped around an outstretched, unmoving arm that protruded from a still form under the immense shattered beam of the house.

  
  


Dipper immediately looked away, but the image was burned into his mind, and with a thought that made him feel like he had begun to freefall into a smothering nothingness, he imagined himself there, holding Mabel’s hand instead and begging for her to wake up, to smile at him, to give him a goofy laugh or a fistbump, anything.

He hunched over, and scrunched his eyes, taking in a deep breath as best he could through his nose as he tried to will himself to stay steady, tears blurring the edges of his vision. Mabel had buried herself into his shoulder, hugging him tight while she began to sob, muffling the sounds into his shoulder.

_Mabel needs me, I’ve got to be strong for Mabes, be strong for your sister. Be strong Dipper, just keep breathing, keep breathing, there you go. Don’t think about it, don’t think about what might have happened, just focus on breathing and helping Mabel. Just focus on that, for now, and worry about everything else later._

He hugged her close, but a sudden thought made his blood run cold. He began frantically fishing around in his pocket, but the material of the pajamas held nothing, and he began lifting up nearby bits of debris around his collapsed bed. Mabel took a deep shuddering breath, and the hurt from him leaving was audible in her barely-steady voice. “Dip, what is it?”

He didn’t want to alarm her, but Dipper was getting more and more frantic himself as he failed to find what he was looking for, and finally, tersely, he said “My phone, I’m trying to find my phone.”

Mabel’s reply was curt, angry, as she almost hissed “Why the  _hell_  do you need your pho-”

Her reply cut off, the blood draining from her face as he could hear her swallow a sudden sob. In a strangled voice she said “ _Here_  here, I-I-I have mine in here, in my pocket,” and she fished out her cellphone, the bright-pink cat face garishly cheerful compared to the stark contrast the fresh morning light was making.

Dipper bounded over, and as Mabel swiped the screen, he caught sight of his own phone: Sitting under a two-by-four, the screen and most of the contents shattered from the impact. His sister tapped out a pair of letters on the phone, and with a shaky finger hit the green call button.

_Calling ‘Mom & Dad’ …_

There was an agonizing silence, the sound of the ringing like thunder in their ears as Dipper held his head touching Mabel’s, listening, praying for a sound, anything, a “Hey sweetie!” or “What’s up hon’?” that would make everything right, everything ok with the world.

Instead, they got seemingly endless ringing, before a robotic voice blipped “All lines are currently busy. Please wait and try your call again later. We apologize for the inconven-”

Mabel mashed the red button, shutting off the call with a whimper. He hugged her close, murmuring into her dusty hair “I’m sure they’re fine, they’ll be alright. Mom is super-always-prepared, remember? And dad used to be a Boy Scout, so they did all kinds of emergency stuff for situations like this. We’ll just have to call them later, and they’ll pick up, and everyth-everything will be back to, back to normal.”

He hoped she hadn’t caught as his voice nearly cracked while reassuring her, but if she noticed, she seemingly didn’t care as she snuggled close to him, hugging him with a too-tight grip as if she was afraid he’d float away like a balloon. He reached around her, hugging her close as he kissed her lightly on the forehead. She looked up at him, smiling with eyes wet, and she mashed her head back into his shoulder as the cries flooded out again.

Dipper sat there, rocking back and forth with her, cooing gently as he stroked the back of her hair. Aunt Joanne had fallen silent, but Dipper dared not look over, not yet. Instead, he focused on Mabel’s warmth, the musty-fruity smell of her sweater, the sound of her breathing as she calmed down slowly but surely, wracking sobs giving way to huffed breaths and short whimpers.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, he carefully got to his feet. Mabel got up and followed behind him, carefully stepping over the bits of debris as best she could; Dipper had still been wearing his slippers, but Mabel was her typical barefoot. A few times he stopped her, or gave her his hand as she picked her way around jagged nails sticking out of boards, or shimmering areas of glass coating a carpet.

Finally, they stopped, and knelt down next to Aunt Joanne, giving her silent, firm hugs. She said nothing at first, letting out a single quickly-silenced cry, before pulling one hand free and hugging it around the twins. “Thank you, m’dears, thank-thank you,” she murmured, kissing them both on the top of their heads before pulling back to look back down at the arm she held.

 Another sob escaped their aunt, her shoulders shaking, and she began murmuring in a voice the twins could only barely make out. Dipper could feel his throat closes up as he recognized the chorus of a song, her strangled voice singing quietly “-And if I thought our love was ending, I’d find myself drowning in my own tears…You are the sunshine of my-” before the singing cracked and gave way to shuddering tears and quiet “ _Iloveyou, Iloveyou, Iloveyou, VernohgodIloveyou, Vern, please”_

Dipper could hear his own heart pounding in his chest, and he and Mabel sat with their aunt for a while. They could see the occasional person walk past, through what was left of the neighborhood. Most looked like they were in a waking dream, and the few that started to approach stopped and gave them looks of understanding sympathy as they saw Joanne.

The sun had risen nearly overhead, and Dipper’s throat was parched. There were a few sputtering fires around the neighborhood, enough that every fourth or fifth breath caught a lungful of acrid sooty smoke, stinking of burning plastic and wiring. Dipper straightened his back, and stood, gently putting a hand on his aunt’s shoulder.

“Aunt-uh, Aunt Joanne, shouldn’t we be getting to like a shelter or-or something?” She looked up at him, with eyes that held none of the joy or twinkle he’d seen last night, and she replied flatly “I suppose so. You go on and run ahead. I-I need to take my own time to say good- to say goodbye.”

Dipper nodded, and he offered Mabel his hand. Her gaze was fixed on their aunt, and before they’d gotten ten paces away, she spun back, kneeling down to hug her briefly and getting a frail, shaking embrace in return.

And then, with that, the twins made their way to the cracked pavement and began walking towards the distant city.


	2. Chapter 2

It was kind of amazing how useful cars were, and just how  _long_  distances were when you couldn’t use them, Dipper thought as he and his sister continued to trudge towards where he last remembered seeing a city.  _“Well,”_  he had said to Mabel as they hiked, _“Emergency services and the National Guard and stuff are probably going to go to the more populated spots, and I’d rather not steal more than we need if we can find some aid workers.”_

The first theft had been the hardest; The house they had come up to was obviously in ruins, no sounds present, and Mabel’s feet were raw, ragged from walking on the cracked asphalt, and covered with a dozen minor cuts from shards of glass. Dipper had tried to get her to swap with him and use his slippers, but she had refused, insisting that she “would be ok,” and reminding him that she had a bigger foot size than he had.

The house he’d ducked into had been a split-level once, but was now rent apart in the middle by a huge crack in the earth. The sound of running water from a broken main could be heard, splashing into a pool made between the newly-formed earthen berms, and the house had just collapsed away from the gap in the foundation. Dipper had been the one to duck under the shattered and leaning door frame and into the foyer of the house.

He had swallowed hard and tried to focus on sorting through the shoes that looked like they might fit Mabel, trying to ignore the implications of the colorful tricycle out front and the white-with-red-racing-stripes shoes inside, far too small for Dipper or his sister to wear.

He came stumbling out, accidentally putting his hand against the frame for support, and with a creaking groan the front of the house proceeded to collapse entirely. Mabel shrieked  _“DIP!”_  as he stumbled forward, running as best as he could on the uneven ground. He successfully dodged the collapsing house, although the  _THUMP_  it made as the last corner of the eaves on that side of the house gave way and toppled to the ground had knocked him to his feet.

He got up, dusting the debris off of his pants, and passing the shoes to Mabel. One set were tennis shoes, slightly too small for her as an experimental foot met with resistance when she tried it on. The others fit like they were from her own wardrobe; Dress flats, black with a little white-polka-dot blow on the top. They had been mostly-covered by a coat that had fallen from a rack on the wall, and as a result they were incredibly clean, standing out sharply against the ragged teen and debris-strewn street.

He looked up, memorizing the house number before they left.  _If they’re still around, I want to at least make up for the shoes. And, uh, demolishing half of their remaining house too, I guess._

Since then, hours had passed, and he had ducked into ruined houses twice since, first to grab bottled water from a cracked-open fridge, and the second time to scrounge up a ripped box of Lee’s Loops cereal for Mabel. She accepted it, a tinge of happiness meeting her voice for the first time since they’d awoken that morning, and for a few minutes at least she had munched it happily as they walked.

However, they were still miles from the downtown area, and the light was starting to fade and mingle with the few standing trees as the sun was setting. Mabel suggested continuing onwards, but Dipper could tell that even if they were lucky, they still had another three or four hours of walking left, and they were both shivering from the cold.

He began checking the next few houses, and finally found the different parts he was looking for in a garage, a surprisingly untouched sports car sitting out front; The owners must have abandoned it because several trees and a large lampost had fallen, boxing in the vehicle on all exits.

Dipper hauled his find out onto the smoothest part of the lawn he could find, which was right snug against one of the walls. An ominous crack ran almost the full lenght up the wall, but checking it carefully from the side he could see that entire wall was actually leaning well away from them, and if it collapsed they’d be safe where they were.

He unzipped the duffel bag, and began assembling the tent he’d found, a sleeping bag under one arm. Mabel came over to help, and with only a bit of trouble, they managed to get the tent set up before the light became too dim to work by. Dipper ducked inside, unfurling the sleeping bag, and ushered his sister inside, hearing her shiver as a breeze caught the edge of the tent before he zipped it shut.

Inside, he kicked off his ragged slippers and Mabel pulled off her borrowed flats, now hopelessly ruined from trudging through the mud and muck for so many hours. She burrowed into the bag, and Dipper followed close behind her, and she snuggled up to him, hugging him tightly for both warmth and comfort.

“Dip, do-do you really think Mom and Dad are…are ok?” she said, in a quiet voice he could barely hear.

He had lied to her earlier, but this time he knew she would want an honest answer, which was unfortunately “I don’t know, Mabel. I…I really don’t know.”

He could feel her tighten, her shoulders shaking once in a silent cry, and she clung even closer to him, her arm wrapped around his chest as she whispered “Please don’t go, Dip. Please don’t leave me.” He choked down tears, as he gently ran his fingers along the back of her head.

“ _Never_ Mabes. Never.”

 

 

The next morning, Dipper awoke wrinkling his nose. It smelled like something had died nearby, or maybe a garbage bag had spilled and there was some expired milk that had gone rancid. He sat up, coughing, and pulled on his worn slippers and took a step outside. The air was cold; Not as bad as the icy cold snap they had a week ago, thankfully, but still enough to make him shiver.

A snapping noise caught his attention for a moment, and looking over he could see that part of where the wall had collapsed had exposed an electrical line. The ends drifted in the breeze, occasionally touching and resulting in an electrical  _snap!_  as they sparked momentarily.

He sighed; It would have been cool if it weren’t for the destruction that caused the effect. He could hear Mabel stir and wake up in the tent behind him, and again he caught a whiff of the nasty stench, a smell of-

_Rotten eggs._

He reached in and grabbed Mabel’s arm, and over her protest of “Dipper, what-” he screamed  _“RUN!”_ as he pulled her upright and out of the tent.

He wasn’t fast enough, not quite.

He had a sensation of heat, of noise that filled his hearing and then hearing nothing at all, and a feeling of weightlessness as he was lifted up off of his feet and flung down the street. Dipper covered his head as best as he could, but he screamed as something gouged his leg, and a feeling like a dozen knives raced over his protecting arms as he rolled and bounced against debris. There was a sharp pain in his right hand as it caught something he was rolling past, but instinctively he yanked his arm back to protect his head, eliciting a aching ember of pain in the hand.

A second later, and it was gone, his ears ringing, his back uncomfortably hot, and he could feel a trickle of blood running down and into the side of his mouth. He sat there for what seemed like an age, multiple opinions in his mind voicing the idea that just sitting down and resting now might be easiest. Instead, he shook the feeling off, and gritted his teeth, shakily getting to his feet, stumbling to one side, and then he looked up.

Standing in front of him was Mabel, her smile glazed, her expression pained and rigid. She let out a breath of relief as he got to his feet, and even though her shoulders sagged somewhat he could see she was still tense.  _“Mabel,”_  he said in relief as he crossed the distance and hugged her.

She screamed, louder than he had ever heard her scream before, a piercing shrill of pain as she stumbled and tried to keep her balance.

Mabel had braced herself on the hood of the sports car, and seeing her from behind, Dipper’s mouth went dry and he could feel his throat clench. “Oh god,  _Mabel!”_

Her back was a crisscross mess of burns. The tent must have partially melted, as there were areas that had splotchy, globular burnt areas that strongly reminded Dipper of the time he had burned his own knee when trying to light a plastic bag on fire. Except this was worse, far worse, and she had similar burns all along her left leg, and even some on the back of her head. Mabel’s hair was always an unspoken point of personal pride, but a huge area of the back of her head was warped flesh and burnt tight curls.

He came over, trying to offer her help, but unsure of where to touch without causing her more pain. Mabel smiled weakly at him, tears streaming down her face and choking her voice, but she tried to lighten the situation nonetheless. “From here on out, I’m having my steaks rare, out of sympathy.”

Dipper choked out a snorting giggle, and Mabel went to laugh as well before her shoulders shook, and she leaned over and vomited, her legs shaking. She looked back up, wiping her mouth on a dirty tatter of her shirt, and he could see her try to smile and fail, the twinge at her cheek disappearing in another sob of pain and tears.

As she looked back up at him, Dipper could see the same worry and fear he shared in her eyes, and he went to wipe her tears from her unburnt face and-

He missed.

Puzzled, Dipper looked down to see that his pointer and middle finger of his right hand were bloody, the pointer finger missing entirely and the middle finger at half its length, skin hanging from-He swallowed and began to hyperventilate as the bile rose in his own throat-a peek of stark-white tendon.

Mabel noticed it as well, letting out a half-scream, half moaning cry of “Dipper, your-your-Oh god, Dip!” and she leaned forward to hug him. He could feel her flinch as she grabbed him, but she maintained the grip, and her shoulders huff once, twice as she clenches him close. He can feel her weight leaning against him for support, and the weight is more soothing than he could have imagined.

He can feel her slump towards him, shock finally kicking, and Dipper begins to feel lightheaded, his vision tunneling away into a single look into the perversely-blue sky, his vision beginning to strobe with flashes of black and the  _wub-wub-wub-WUB-WUB-WUB_  of his heartbeat rushing in his ears, as the darkness takes him.

 

 

“Hey _, hey HANK! We’ve got a live one-holy shit, we’ve got two live ones over here! Bring the Chinook down, we’re going to need a stretcher for the-”_

_“-degree across about 20% of her body, and first degree over another 15%. Her prognosis is positive, but the burns from something flammable, a shirt perhaps, are going to leave deep-”_

_“Dipper…”_

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

_“Dipper…”_    
  


_“DIPPER!”_

Dipper starts into waking, Mabel’s face inches from his. His eyes widen for a second, and then an eyebrow raises in confusion at her appearance. His twin’s head, and most of her torso and leg, are wrapped with surgical gauze. As he leans up, he can see her smile and wince at the effect that has on the bandages.

Dipper sits up, propping one arm under him and hissing in pain at the lance of fire running through his right hand. He looks over at it, seeing it covered in bandages much like his sisters but forming a reverse ‘L’ shape from the two completely-missing fingers.  _Figures,_  he thought with a sense of distant detachment,  _They probably had to amputate what was left of that middle one._

 

He looked back to his sister, who was standing over his bed.  _Scratch that, it’s a cot,_  he noticed, looking at the rough canvas fabric and bettered metal frame. It was a dark kelly green, matching the faded tent edges overhead.

Looking around, he and his sister are divided from the rest of the spacious tent by a set of hanging curtains, but he can hear the groans and snores nearby, and the distant sound of voices and a pair of babies crying.

It’s a shock, really, being somewhere that feels  _alive,_  given that the rare people they saw before were like wraiths, keeping their distances from each other instinctively. It’s also an odd comfort, despite the distinct chill of the seasonal air permeating the tent.

He looks back to his twin, giving her a little smile which Mabel returns. Something in the back of his mind kicks him when he remembers the extent of her injuries. “Mabes, are…are you doing ok? You got burned, really bad,” he said, hearing his voice threaten a crack at the end of the sentence.

She shrugs, again eliciting a wince, and for a second it almost seems like the bandages are just another of her oversized sweaters. “I was asleep for most of it, but I remember them saying something about a “cellgun” and them spraying something on it. Stung like crazy, but feels way better now.”

He smiled, and was about to say something when there was a commotion from one end of the tent, and a tinny familiar jingle caused both Dipper and Mabel to jerk their heads towards the source.  _Oh god, the news; We can find out what the fuck happened._

He clambered out of bed, following his barefoot sister as they threaded their way along the tarp hallway and towards the sound of a voice on a TV. Rounding the corner, they could see they weren’t alone; Close to two-dozen people had gathered around an old CRT set, one man holding and carefully adjusting a pair of bunny ear antenna as they all watched the report.

  
  


_“-say it’s the worst in recorded history for the region. Damage was felt as far as north as Anchorage and as far south as Costa Rica. Swathes of Mexico, including almost the entirety of Manzanillo and Acapulco, have been leveled from the shockwave, and San Diego, Los Angeles, and most of the Bay area was-”_

The news anchor’s voice breaks, but they clear their throat and continue.  _“-was heavily damaged, with few structures standing, and very few survivors found thus far. While the 9.4-magnitude  quake has not been given an official title yet, the repercussions from it will-”_

Mabel had stumbled her phone out of her pocket, wide eyes darting between the newscast and the little screen, a single bar of battery life winking red at her. Dipper hugged her close, trying not to hyperventilate as she held up the cellphone between them.

It rang once, twice, three times, the automated message from before not kicking in. He chewed his lip, ignoring the TV while his ears strained for-

_“-Piedmont and the rest of the Oakland area were-”_

_Wait, that’s home!_  He looked up, Mabel having heard as well and concentrating on the TV as the phone continued to ring.

_“Experts say the reason the damage was so extensive was due to the Golden Gate strait allowing almost the full force of the tsunami through. Most of the homes here have little left but foundations, and although rescuers are hopeful, they have been unable to locate any survivors.”_

The helicopter view was that of a watery hellscape, with what had once been a forested area filled with houses now a great dirty sea, water the color of mud and with shattered debris floating in little clumps here and there.

Just then, the phone clicked, and the twins heard their mom’s voice:

_“Hi, you’ve reached the Pines family! We can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message and we’ll get right back. Bye!”_

  
  


Mabel let out a little choked sob, and some of those watching the newscast turned, giving them both looks of knowing sympathy. One of them, apparently a nurse for the makeshift hospital tent, said “Oh honey, you need to be in bed!” and scurried over, gently ushering them back the way they came.

Dipper offered no resistance; He felt numb, the light and sounds of the nurse reassuring them distant and hollow.  _You suspected all along,_  he thought.  _You’d read the article a few years back, just like everyone else. You knew as soon as you woke up and saw what happened to Aunt Joanne and Uncle Vern’s neighborhood, you just didn’t want to believe it then._

The answering machine somehow clinched it, though, and with a shudder, Dipper sat and pulled the blanket over him and his cot. Memories of his parents ran through his mind, as he tried with clenched eyes to memorize each one. Even little memories, like the smell of his mom’s pancakes, the soothing sound of his dad’s voice when he skinned his knee, the warm light through the living room window on weekend mornings, and their smiles, oh-oh god, their smiles; All of it he tried to grasp and hold onto, locking the memories so he couldn’t forget and yet feeling countless other moments, snippets of the life they once had, slipping away from him and evaporating like soap bubbles.

Dipper shoulders shook as he let out a wretched sob, and a few feet away he could hear his sister do the same as the twins cried themselves to sleep for the first time in a decade.

  
  


The next two days passed in a blur. They had slept through most of the next day, rousing themselves enough to eat when the kindly nurse from earlier brought them trays of dinner. The food was bland but filling, and they dutifully ate in silence. He could see the nurse giving them a reassuring smile, but colored behind that was an unspoken sadness, and from her lack of an attempt to reassure them about possible survivors, he correctly guessed that there probably weren’t many to speak of.

By the dawn of their third day in the aid camp, Dipper was feeling almost human again. He rotated his shoulder, gingerly flexing his thumb and two remaining fingers on his hand but stopping short and wincing when they emitted a flare of pain.  _“It will probably be a week or two before they are fully healed,”_  the harried doctor had said when he briefly came to check on him.  _“As for the stiffness and lingering pain, that is less certain; You might be back to 100% in a month, or it might be a few years before they fade.”_

Dipper had nodded, but his mood perked up considerably when the doctor checked on his sister. She was doing far better than the doctor had expected, and Dipper found out the ‘cellgun’ they had tried was actually barely beyond the prototype stage, just recently introduced at a handful of trauma centers. She smiled as the doctor was able to remove most of the bandages, keeping some on her upper back and thigh where the burning tent’s plastic had melted deeper gouges into her skin.

An hour or two later, as they were munching on the meal of rehydrated peas and flaked potatoes the nurse had brought in, a woman in a wrinkled business jacket dame to the edge of their curtain.

“Knock knock, “ she said with a slight smile, and he and his sister returned the smile faintly and waved her in. “um, ‘Dipper’ and Mabel, uh, Pines?” she said, checking a clipboarded folder she had in front of her.

Dipper’s heart sank as he began to guess what this was about, and he nodded. He could see Mabel’s eyes had begun to water, and she hurriedly dropped her head and focused on eating her dinner, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

“Dipper?” the stranger said inquisitively, and Dip nodded, lifting up his shaggy bangs to reveal his birthmark, and she nodded, making an understanding “Ahh” before briefly checking the clipboard and a sheet of hand-written notes.

“I’m Mia Johansson, with the California Child Protective Services. Um, unfortunately, there still has not been any success in contacting your parents-” Mabel cut off a strangled cry, and Mia looked at her sympathetically with Dipper before continuing, “-And state regulations indicate that in emergency situations like this, you’ll need to be sent to the nearest relatives we’ve been able to contact.”

Dipper’s heart began to rise, slightly; Grunkle Stan was just a few hours north of them, and from what he’d seen on the news, that region was far east enough to avoid the brunt of the damage from the quake.

“We’ve been able to get ahold of a Ms. Petunia Oswald-” Mabel let out a little quiet huff that only Dipper noticed, and he realized she’d been hoping they’d be sent to their Grunkle as well, “-in Florida. She’s your grandmother on your mother’s side, correct?”

Dipper nodded before Mia continued. “She’s arranged bus transportation for Dipper, and when-”

Dipper and Mabel’s head shot up, and his sister said before he could “ _What?_  Why-why not Dipper  _and_ me?”

Mia gave her another look of sympathetic regret,  but pointed to her bandaged back. “We need to keep you here, and make sure that no infections have set in. The procedure is new, and the doctors want to see if this technique is something they can apply to other burn victims here-”

Dipper jumped to his feet, standing protectively between the aid worker and his sister. “This is  _bullshit,”_  he said in a half-shout, half threatening growl. Mia took a step back, but shook her head slightly and gave a helpless shrug. “It should only be a few weeks, maximum, and-”

Dipper yelled again, feeling the anger rise in his cheeks as he gestured with his bandaged hand. “No. _No. Fuck_  that,” he said, ignoring her interjection of “Language, Mr Pines. I understand how you-”

He swiped his hand to cut off her reply, saying shortly “No, you’re not fucking separating us. Not after that. I’ll stay here with her, or she can come home with me and the docs can check her once we get to Grandma Oz’s house, but-”

She shook her head, the sympathy almost absent now as she said curtly and with a firm finality “ _No,_ Mr. Pines. We need as much bed space here as possible for treatment, and your sister’s condition isn’t stable enough for travel, let alone the fact that the doctors who would need to examine her can’t afford the time and expense to travel across the country to do so.”

Her tone, sharp and pointed, softens slightly as she says “I’m sorry, Dipper. The bus will be here in the morning.” She then turned, and left the tent.

  
  


“How can they  _do_  that to  _us?”_  Mabel hissed, her voice full of anger but her eyes and expression looking like she wanted to curl up and hide in Sweatertown. Dipper didn’t answer her at first, his eyes staring into the distance in the direction Mia had left. “Dip-Dippingsauce, I-I don’t want you to g-go,” she said, starting to take little short breaths as she hyperventilated, her eyes wide with terror at the situation facing them.

Dipper gave her a smile, showing her some confidence to reassure her despite internally feeling numb with terror at the possible outcomes of what he was about to propose. In a firm voice, he said “Mabes, I’m not going anywhere.”

With her smile pushing him on, he clenched his uninjured hand, and in a low voice said “Finish your food. We’re leaving.”


	4. Chapter 4

Escaping the aid center was surprisingly easy, Dipper had to admit.

They were nearly able to walk right out of the medical tent; In the tent next to it, Dipper had found an overlarge black parka, folded and sitting with the other general-use clothes they had out for volunteers and the displaced to borrow as needed.  _Well, I certainly need it_ he thought as he shrugged it on, and grabbed a pair of denim jeans and some still-muddy boots that were also a size too large.

Mabel had managed to find a faded pink hoodie, the emblem of a local community college on it difficult to make out, and when she pulled the hood up and over the bandages on the back of her head, she gave him a nervous smile. Dipper returned a thumbs-up, and helped her find a pair of grey sweatpants, baggy enough she was able to tug them on over the white wrapping on her leg.

She hissed as the contact disturbed some raw skin, but after seeing Dipper’s look of concern as he knelt to help her, she smiled, giving him a hug after getting the clothes on, and slipping on a pair of worn tennis shoes. Mabel’s only belonging that she had brought with, her now-depleted cellphone, went into the hoodie pocket, and they ducked out the rear of the tent as some voices came around to the other side.

The weather was a cold drizzle, the stormy skies above echoing the general mood of the camp. Here and there a bright spot of music, light, or laughter would brighten the immediate area, but for the most part the faces they saw were as dour and grey as the clouds above. Nobody had apparently noticed their absence, and they were ignored as they wandered towards the northern gate.

As they came within sight, Dipper hissed with frustration and pulled Mabel off to one side, out of sight behind a parked truck. He had seen a set of bright floodlights set on the road, and a National Guardsman doing a perfunctory check of IDs. Neither twins had theirs;  _They’re sitting almost a hundred miles away, probably under what’s left of our bedrooms_  he thought, the vision making his vision blur and his hand clench for a moment. 

He took a calming breath, and frowned; Any verification call would land them back in the tent, probably under a guard or supervision, and they needed to keep moving to be away from here well before dawn.

As he scanned the hastily-erected chain link fence for a break or easy escape route, a nagging thought pushed itself to the forefront.  _What are you going to do once you get out, huh? Hitchhike? Mabel is hurt, and you’re not in great shape either, and who knows what whackjobs might pick you up and truck you off to their cabin to make skinsuits or something. You need money to travel, and you won’t have a better chance than here._

Dipper’s guts crawled at the thought; Sure, they’d borrowed clothes and food from destroyed houses, but in those cases they at least had the justification that it was to survive, to not die of exposure. Here? The twins were trying to escape from the people who were in theory attempting to “help” them.

Dipper sighed under his breath, irritated at his inopportune morality.  _Well, do what we did before; Remember who it was, and reimburse them when we get up north and back on our feet._

He looked up to see Mabel staring at a fallen section of fencing, and as she went to stand up and briskly walk towards it he grabbed her arm to pull her back, eliciting a squeak of pain. “Dipper, _ow!_ What’s-”

“We need to get something first; Some money, so we can make our way up north safely.”

He could see her expression twist into disgust and disapproval at the idea of outright theft. “ _Dip!_ We can’t just-”

“Hey, who’s over there?”

The twins both went rigid, and the sound of distant approaching boot steps from the direction of the checkpoint had Dipper grab Mabel’s sleeve, gently this time to avoid rubbing the sensitive skin, and drag her after him. They crouched and awkwardly ran behind a few tents, seeing a flashlight approach the area they had been before turning back the way it came.

Mabel’s eyes were full of disappointment, but Dipper put a hand softly on her shoulder. “I don’t like it any better than you do Mabes, but hitchhiking will be dangerous, assuming anyone is even on the roads right now, and we certainly can’t hike all the way there.”

She pouted her lip, still angry with him but unable to come up with a rebuttal. Dipper just sighed, murmuring “I’ll be back in a second,” and ducking into the nearest darkened tent.

Inside, dozens of cots were lined up, and still or snoring forms were everywhere. In one corner an infant was fussing, and he could hear a mother’s voice cooing and soothing it. He ducked down;  _I need to make this fast._

Crouching over to the nearest form, he rifled around quietly until he felt a pile of discarded clothing. However, a brief check of the pockets yielded nothing, and gritting his teeth, he moved on to the next set of cots.

It wasn’t until the fourth set, where a heavyset man was snoring noisily, that he struck gold: A leather wallet, full of mostly receipts, but Dipper could feel the worn bills inside as well. As he turned to leave the tent, he heard a stirring behind him, and a little child’s voice sleepily say “Hey, who are you?”

_Shit._

Dipper didn’t bother to respond, and just reacted, standing up and sprinting out of the tent towards Mabel as the little kid yelled out behind him “DAD!” Mabel was looking tense; She had apparently heard the cry, and her brother’s hasty exit from the tent confirmed those suspicions that he’d been detected.

They both turned and sprinted for the fallen fencing, making it over it as a few cries sounded from the tents behind them, but the yells faded as they made it between a set of apartment tenements a few blocks away. Mabel was doubled over, panting shallowly and groaning occasionally. Dipper cursed inwardly at his stupidity; Her injuries meant they would need to move slowly, and taking a stupid risk like running away meant that there would be people probably looking for them and that they  _couldn’t_ move slowly..

 _Doesn’t matter,_  he thought as she slowed her breathing and gave him a weak smile and squeeze on his uninjured hand,  _We are not getting separated. Period._

Recalling his mental map of the area, Dipper oriented them towards the highway, and they began hiking that way at a much slower pace. The night was mostly spent by the time they got to the first set of lights, and with a gasp of relief Dipper could see the glow of a Speedy Beaver sign, sandwiched between a laundromat and a Dusk-2-Dawn convenience store. He ran over, Mabel jogging as fast as she could behind, and they ducked inside.

There, the man behind the counter was just threading his arm through his coatsleeve, and said when they entered “Oh, sorry guys. We closed a few minutes ago.” He pointed to a nearby sign which indicated that they closed at 2:30AM.  _Was it really that late already?_

Dipper’s face fell, and Mabel’s must have done the same, because the employee put up his hands defensively, saying with a reassuring smile “Well, wait a minute, now hold on. No need for crying; I think I might be able to get something arranged for y’all.”

He began typing on the screen, and a second later looked up at them, saying “All right now, where’re y’all headed?”

Dip began to say “Gra-” before catching himself, and frantically trying to remember what was nearby, finally said “Corvallis, or at least as close as this can get us.” The last thing he wanted was to give anyone following them a firm location to check, and Corvallis was close enough that he could see about getting them some more money, somehow.

 _Amazing how fast your idea of “acceptable behavior” changes when you’re desperate,_ he thought bitterly.

He held out a wad of money; It was woefully less than he’d hoped, only totalling around fifty bucks when a ticket for either of them had cost sixty when they’d made arrangements to visit Stan last summer.  _Well, maybe we can make it a little ways further, and figure out something else when we get there,_ his mind suggested glumly.

After removing the cash, Dipper had tucked the wallet through the mail slot of a thrift store across the street that was closed for the evening, wrapping it in one of the longer receipts. On the receipt he had scratched out “Plz return to owner. Will repay you. Thnx” with his dirty thumbnail against the carbon paper.

The Speedy Beaver employee checked the money, and glanced back to his monitor with a worried expression. He seemed to finally notice their still-somewhat-disheveled state, and the bandaged hand Dipper was trying to hide in the parka’s pocket. “You, uh, you guys got hit with the brunt of it, eh?” he said quietly.

Dipper gritted his teeth, remembering the images on the TV of the devastation of Oakland and…and home, and said “Not…not as bad as some.”

Mabel started crying quietly next to him, and leaned against him for support. The man behind the counter, “James” according to his nametag, gave them an understanding nod and said nothing. He went back to his monitor, and punched in several keys, “Hmm”ing in frustration at one point as something flicked up on to the screen, but after another few minutes of keying in codes, he printed out a pair of tickets.

“I’m afraid these will only get you as far as Ashland,” he said, handing them to Dipper, but Dip felt his heart race; This was far, far closer than he had hoped he could get with so little, and upon seeing his look of amazement, James chuckled. “Well, according to your ticket, you two, Mr John Doe and Mrs. Jane Doe, are both senior citizens, and frequent Speedy Beaver travellers using all five thousand of your maximum stored Beaver Points for a discount.” He gave them a knowing smile, and Dipper couldn’t help but smile back.

He started to turn towards the door, but stopped, and looked back to James. “Th-thank you. For staying open, for the discount, for-thank you.” Dipper had been expecting him to check IDs like they normally did, of which they had none and it was something his sleep-deprived brain hadn’t even registered until he heard the aliases.

James merely waved it away, saying “Don’t mention it.” In a lower, sympathetic voice he said “‘Sides, after what you probably saw, weren’t my place to be nosing in with questions anyhow. Take care now.”

Dipper waved to him, and followed his sister out to the bus stop. She fell asleep against him as they waited, the drizzle slowing and stopping, and the clouds gradually breaking. The sun was poking through the pink clouds and shimmering on the wet asphalt when the bus finally pulled up; He and his sister were the only ones getting on, and besides a sleeping old man in the front and a sour-looking woman in an expensive suit near the middle, the bus was empty.

He led Mabel to the back, as she murmured half-asleep, and they took their seats. The bus started off again, and Dipper started to drift off as well.

 

 

The next few hours passed peacefully; There were a few more passengers getting on and off at the stops, but for the most part it was no more than a half-dozen other people besides the twins. He drifted into sleep, slumping against Mabel as her soft, even breathing mixed with the rhythmic rumble of the road.

At first, he had tried to watch out the window, but eventually turned away. There were too many broken houses, too many wreckages that reminded him of the bitter reality of their situation and the fate of his parents. With a grimace he tugged down the sun shade, and leaned the other direction towards his sleeping sister.

Waking after what seemed like a fuzzy, soothing week of travel, he heard the intercom crackle, the voice of the bus driver saying “All passengers for Ashland, all passengers for Ashland please.” Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as Mabel stirred beside him, Dipper considered trying to sneak an additional stop or two, trying to get closer to their final destination, but stopped himself. If they were caught, they’d be back to square one, and he was  _damn_  sure he wasn’t going to let that happen.

 

 

They wandered from the bus dropoff in downtown Ashland, gratefully accepting some incredibly-generous slices of fall pears from a roadside fruit vendor, and slowly made their way towards the interstate again. Dipper figured this would be their best shot to get a ride the rest of the way north, but with thumbs outstretched, most cars paid them little mind and blew right past them. Some came so close  he worried about losing more digits, and he interjected himself between the road curb and his sister.

His arm was getting tired and Dip was starting to lose hope when a  _thump-HISS_ of compression brakes caught his attention; A semi truck just past them had slowed down, the empty and stacked logging trailer pulled in tight behind the cabin. He nudged Mabel, who had begun leaning against him while half-asleep, when they both darted their heads up as they heard an almighty bellow:

_“PINES?”_

Dipper’s jaw dropped. It was “Manly” Dan Corduroy, Wendy’s dad. He came bustling out of the still-running truck, and grabbed Dip in a wide hug, causing him to gasp as he felt a bone crack, before being set down. Dan went to reach for Mabel to do the same, but stopped when both she and her brother abruptly yelled  _“No!”_

Dip was still in shock at seeing a familiar face, but a little soundbyte from Wendy from almost five years back popped up from a dusty mental archive.  _“Yeah, my dad has to leave town to deliver the lumber down to Medford. It kinda sucks, since then it’s just me and my mom trying to handle my brothers, but he always makes sure to bring us back a treat or gift or something each time,”_  she had said, as Dipper had concentrated on drinking in her appearance rather than her words at the time. Tweaking her worn brown bomber with a finger, she’d said  _“That’s where I got my hat, a few years back.”_

Dan rubbed the back of his neck, looking them both up and down after he formally shook Mabel’s proffered hand. “Blimey,”  he said in a low voice as he saw Dipper’s hand and the edge of Mabel’s bandages. “You…you both was there when it happened, eh?”

Dipper nodded, and Dan cleared his throat after a moment of awkward silence, giving them a broad grin. “Well, any friends o’ me daughter is a friend o’ mine; Where are ya headed?”

“Gravity Falls,” the twins said in unison, and Dan clapped his hands together like localized thunder. “Great! Just dropped me load off earlier so I’m headed back home. Hop in the cab and let’s get you to yer, er ‘Grunkle.’”

They climbed up in the cabin, which had an overwhelming smell of, funnily enough, pine, likely caused by the small forest of air fresheners hanging from the rearview window. There was a big box of music CDs in the middle of the wide seat that Dipper scooted aside so he could sit, and his sister followed in after him.  Dan gave a whoop, and they were off.

 

 

The first part of the trip was mostly spent in more awkward silence; Dan wasn’t much of a talker, and brought up the weather several times. Dipper figured he was trying to avoid bringing up anything about the quake, and appreciated not having to think more about it for the time being. Trees and some buildings had fallen on either sides of the road as they drove along, but it was far, far less extensive than it had been for most of what he could see in California out the bus windows.

About an hour into the trip, Mabel spoke up, for the first time since they’d gotten on Dan’s semi. In a quiet-yet-intrigued voice, she said “Hey, Manly Dan… Are you still a fan of Sev’ral Timez?”

Dan broke into one of his wide grins beneath his voluminous facial hair, and let out a laugh. With fingers the size of Dipper’s wrists, he deftly plucked a CD from a holder in the sun visor, and without looking crammed it into an awaiting slot in the dash console. A second later, “Cray Cray” began belting out over the speakers in ear-numbingly loud volumes, and Mabel began singing along with Dan’s off-key bellowing.

Dipper laughed, smiling after seeing his sister happy, truly happy, for the first time since this nightmare had started. He joined in where he could, only knowing about one lyric in four, and by the time the CD had looped through all the tracks for the second time and started playing “Cray Cray” again, the _“Welcome to Gravity Falls!”_ sign sped by on their right.

He could feel his breathing start to speed up, his eyes feeling wet as Mabel grabbed and squeezed his arm.  _Almost…we’re almost-Man, I thought we’d never make it this far._  Dan followed the paved road, peeling off around the corner and almost hitting the Mystery Shack’s little signpost at the head of the dirt road.

The parking lot was empty; A few trees had fallen, and while one of them bore the signs of Dan’s handiwork and were partially removed, others blocked most of the spots. The Shack itself was intact, or at least as intact as it was when they had last seen it, and after clambering out, Dipper took a deep breath in, relishing the heady scent of loam and pine and cedar again.

Mabel had slowed, giving Dan a kiss on the cheek by way of thanks, leading the enormous man to a blush as red as his beard. He harumphed, closing the door shut with a slam, but giving them a friendly wave, and making them jump as he honked the deafening horn on the truck. Then with a rumble the truck dug into the grassy turf of the parking lot, and turned back towards the main road into town.

 

 

Dipper and his sister turned, and Grunkle Stan was on the steps, a copy of the paper recently tucked under one arm now falling to the dirt. He gave them a sad little smile, arms wide, and they ran to him, into his arms as he let out a gentle “Whoof!” of breath as he pulled them into a hug.

Dipper could feel his shoulders shake with tears, sobs that sounded like they were someone else’s coming from his own mouth. Mabel was making a combination of happy squeaks and cries of her own, her one arm around Stan’s back but her other digging into Dip’s shoulder, anchoring him as he carefully put his arm around an unburnt area of her back and his Grunkle’s shoulders.

Dipper was feeling like he was melting, like the sod beneath his feet was warm quicksand. Tension he had been holding, strength he didn’t have but pretended to for Mabel’s sake; All of it melted with that hug, and he looked up to Stan, who met his gaze with a smile. That smile contained sorrow Dip hadn’t seen for half a decade, but was tinged with a sparkle of hope and love that gave Dipper a surge of certainty deep in his soul.

 

 

No words were said. None needed to be said.

The twins were finally home.


	5. Chapter 5

It had been a long few days since the twins had arrived.

Grunkle Ford had finally come up to greet them, his loving eyes comforting them with kind words much in the same way his brother had. He had been down in his old bunker, cleaning up, disarming traps, and refilling the nitrogen feeds for the shapeshifter’s frozen prison.

It had taken Dipper aback seeing just how  _old_  his Grunkles looked at first. Stan had rings under his eyes like he hadn’t slept for weeks, and Ford had two months of unshaved stubble on his chin. He had grouched and meandered about the Shack, his mechanical prosthetic whirring and beeping in annoyance as he strained it, but over the following days, the faded rings disappeared from Stan’s face as his gruff smile returned, and Ford finally shaved, laughter ringing out from him as one of the twins or his brother made a joke.

With a shock, Dipper had realized they had been worried sick, for him and his sister. Ford had shaken when he embraced them upon their arrival, and while at the time Dipper thought it was on account of his faulty leg’s bearings, thinking back he realized it had been from sheer relief instead.

When they got upstairs, Mabel darted over to a dusty chest, yanking out an only-slightly-musty pink sweater, and unwrapping it. To Dipper’s shock, she pulled out her old music box; It was a gift he’d gotten for her through a harrowing adventure a few years ago, the memory briefly making his shoulder burn in sympathy, but he’d been sure she had brought it home.

At the time the gift had been a gesture of love for his sister beyond the mere platonic; That love had faded on her part over the intervening years, he suspected, but the memories of that summer and the others before and after still burned brightly in his own heart. Still, Mabel had taken the music box home with her that summer, and brought it with every time they came to the Shack in the summer.

Seeing his confused look, Mabel gave him a smile and a shrug. “I had meant to take it home last summer, but I had grabbed the wrong sweater to bring-to bring home,” she said, her voice catching a bit near the end as she hung her head. She looked back up at her brother, smiling with tears in her eyes as she began winding the music box.

Dipper came over and sat next to her, gingerly hugging her close as she began sniffing, muttering in a low voice tinged with forced levity “Guess-guess I need to make a few new sweaters this summ-this su-” She broke down into tears as Dipper hugged her, the music box tinkling as he hugged her tight, murmuring “We’re home now, Mabes. We’re  _home,_  we’re safe, and that’s all that matters right now.”

That first night, of sleeping in a familiar bed, safe and surrounded by the only family that mattered anymore, Dipper truly thought things were going to get better.

 

 

The next morning, Grunkle Stan had given both of the twins a stack of bills, pointing them in the direction of the mall so they could get a wardrobe change. They had showered that morning, another glorious first in nearly a week of hell, but sliding on the still-dirty clothes helped make the proposal a top priority for them.

Unfortunately, after a run-in with an obstinate stump, the Stanley Mobile was in the shop for repairs. Luckily, the cart was still available, for the first time in years; Soos was currently visiting his extended family, but before he had left for the season he had fixed up the golf cart, and the twins clambered into that to drive into town.

Shivering through his parka as they pulled into the parking lot, Dipper definitely hoped to avoid using a golf cart while it was still winter here; A few swathes of the lot still had shoveled piles of snow, and there were patches of pavement still slick with a crusting of ice as he and Mabel made their way into the mall.

Inside, the warmth melted the chill from their bones, and shivers became giggling laughs as they dared to enjoy themselves. After a trip to the food court, luxuriating in fatty, salty, delicious mounds of fast food, they took a turn towards the clothing options.

Mabel was surprisingly quick, taking only a few minutes to pick out some white and pastel tanktops and an equal number of loose-cut jeans. Dipper felt a pang of sadness as he watched her come out of the fitting room, admiring and critiquing the look in the mirror; Normally, Mabel went with the most outrageous color combinations she could, but today she seemed to be entirely focused on comfort rather than the prismatic expressionism she used to employ.

Still, he couldn’t help but chuckle happily as she stopped in the checkout line, and ran over to a discount display, before returning with three handfuls of various clashing styles of gaudy, cheap jewelry, bracelets, and a pair of neon socks embroidered with puppies on one set, and winged whales on bicycles on the other.

Mabel looked over at his laugh, saw his smile and nod towards her new socks, and she shrugged. “What can I say? My innate sense of style is a  _gift.”_  Then she stuck out her tongue, joining him as they laughed and walked to the next shop.

As they walked, Dipper had asked her if she was getting anything to replace the borrowed hoodie, and she looked at the plain sweatshirt.  _Well, it is pink and has a big design, but that’s “plain” for Mabel-style._

She stuck her tongue out at the sweater, tossing it over a shoulder as she grabbed Dipper’s bandaged hand, hesitating slightly until he gave her a tentative weak-gripped squeeze back, and she pulled him towards the next shop:  _That’s Some Good Knit!_

Inside, Dipper felt time slow to a leisurely crawl and his enthusiasm began to wane. A few times he had to stop himself groaning as Mabel took her time, going from rack to rack of knitting needles and balls of yarn. Eventually, after what felt like an aeon of suffering but was probably more like half an hour, she checked out with two new sets of needles, and a full dozen balls of yarn in every eye-searing color of the rainbow she’d been able to find.

However, when the time came to get Dipper a set of new clothes, he was having a lot more trouble figuring out what to get. He quickly grabbed a stack of grey t-shirts and a variety of discount cargo pants and heavy jeans, but as he went to the jackets section, nothing seemed to fit right, being too small, too thin, or too gaudy. Mabel giggled as she brought him a puffy blue vest, and he laughed in recognition of his old monothematic wardrobe choices, but he could tell that a vest was  _definitely_  not going to work in this wintertime chill.

Instead, he found himself coming back time and again to the almost-oversized parka, the faded sleeves and worn fur ruff far more comfortable and warming than anything he’d found at the mall so far. After a bit of consideration, he pulled out a trio of $20s from the stack Stan had given them and folded them into his pocket.

Seeing Mabel’s curious look, he said bashfully “Well, I’ve kind of grown to like this one, so I figure when we send the other stuff back, I can send the money and a note instead of the coat?” Mabel thought for a moment and then nodded with a smile.

The two had discussed what to do, and agreed that after they had changed into some new clothes and washed the stuff they’d borrowed, that they should ship it back to Sacramento, via Manly Dan dropping it off during his next Medford run.  _“No sense in shipping it from here, in case anyone is still looking for us,”_  Dipper had said.

He also patted his other pocket, where he and Mabel had put aside the money borrowed for the bus tickets, to mail to the address Dipper had memorized along with a note of apology for borrowing it. He had wanted to make sure they squared their accounts, to ease his conscience as well as his sister’s; Mabel was far less comfortable with the idea of the borrowing and theft, especially now that they weren’t actively on the run, and Dipper wanted to make sure she wasn’t eating herself up with guilt any longer than she already had.

Finally, on their last stop out of the store, after the twins had changed in the dressing rooms into their new purchases and stuffed the stinky, worn clothes into a pair of bags held at arm’s length, Mabel pointed excitedly towards an  _Electromoose_  shop. Confused, Dipper followed her inside, the blinking and beeping of the various toys, games, and gadgets filling the room with a maddening wall of sound.

He saw Mabel start to pick out a cellphone charger, and realized her intentions. Putting an arm on her shoulder, he said over the noise of the electronic cacophony “Mabel, we should leave your phone dead; If they’re trying to track the emergency GPS on it, that will lead them right here.”

Mabel’s eyes widened in shock as she realized the implications, and she wedged it back into her pocket. Dipper gave her a smile, but pointed towards a wall of cheap pay-card cellphones. She squeed as she saw an array of ones adorned with glitter-encrusted puppies, and smiling at her enthusiasm, Dipper picked out a fairly utilitarian blue one for himself, and a pair of the medium-sized minute cards to “charge” them with.

That evening, as he tried to fall asleep, Dipper had to clench his eyes and ignore the faint beeps from Mabel’s bed. Worse still was when he tried to forget the even-fainter, tinny voice that played over and over as she dialed countless times that night:

_“Hi, you’ve reached the Pines family! We can’t come to the phone right now…”_

One by one, various friends came to the Shack, greeting the twins, usually offering little besides a hug of sympathy or smile of understanding and a few hushed words. Stan had the two of them manning the shop, but the tourists were almost nonexistent between the season and the recent disaster.

Dipper was grateful for the relative quiet; He didn’t feel like he’d be able to answer any deeper questions, and Mabel’s attempted nightly calls, which always resulted in her crying herself to sleep, had worn down his own emotions too. Finally, he had to put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her into a hug as the phone dropped from her nerveless fingers to clatter on the wood floor.

“Dip, I-I don’t wanna give up on them. They  _might-”_

Dipper could feel himself breath in deeply, trying to keep down the sob as he said “Mabes, I-” He took another breath, steeling himself as he said “There’s a site they put up two days ago, with a list of the survivors, the missing, and-” his voice caught “-and the deceased.”

Mabel looked up at him, hope fighting and failing against the despair on her face as his voice cracked and he said “They…they’re gone, Mabes. Not missing; Gone.” He looked up at her, and they fell into each other’s arms, Mabel’s sobs echoing throughout the room as Dipper could feel his own barriers breaking down. He began to choke out a cry, trying and failing to strangle the sound as he hugged his sister close.

There were no phone calls made that night, or any following night, and the twins had only the sound of a mournful music box to lull them asleep.

 

 

The next few days passed numbly. Mabel completed a sweater, they went to eat a few times at Greasy’s Diner, and Dipper had a chance to catch up with Wendy one afternoon and find out about life in Gravity Falls since the last summer, but for the most part it felt distant. His sister wasn’t talking with him; She still hadn’t forgiven him for not telling her about the fate of their parents.

Dipper couldn’t blame her, but her words still stung. When he’d tried to explain that he was trying to protect her, to soften the blow, she had rounded on him, a finger waving in his face as she shouted _“Dipper, we’re twins; We’re supposed to share everything, to never be apart or lie or anything and…and you did that, Dip. You didn’t trust me.”_

As a result, they’d been separate; Mabel would man the counter, while Dipper cleaned upstairs, and she would leave the room as soon as he entered. The few times they were in the same room for meals she glared at him, sadness and still-smoldering anger in equal measure. At night, she slept facing away from him, her scarred back a reminder:  _You can’t always save her, Dip._

It was because of this separation that Dipper didn’t hear the car doors until too late.

 

He was upstairs, wiping a stubborn blob of green mold out of one corner of the tub when he heard the sound of a car. Several cars, actually; Likely a tour group. He could hear a knocking on the door, low conversation, when the relative silence was broken by Mabel’s piercing shriek: _“DIPPER!”_

He was halfway down the stairs a second later, hitting the landing before her scream had faded. His breath caught as he saw an apologetic face, one which gave him a look of understanding but more than a small measure of I-told-you-so arrogance: Mia Johansson, the California CPS official.

Behind her, he could see a pair of state patrol officers, each with a hand under Mabel’s scarred arms. They were carrying her towards an open patrol car, pushing her into the back over her screams and struggle, and slamming the door shut.

Mia said in a firm, quiet voice “I’m sorry Dipper, but you knew this was coming.” But Dipper didn’t hear her; He was racing past her, shoving her roughly aside and chasing the car as it dug into the muddy road. Mabel was screaming his name, her eyes wide as Dipper reached; His fingers brushed the bumper of the car, as the front tires hit asphalt.

With a screech, the car peeled away, and Dipper stumbled to his knees, looking up to see her face one last time before it disappeared into the trees. He let out an incoherent scream, of rage and helplessness, before it choked off to into a single sob.

_“Mabel…”_


	6. Chapter 6

Dipper walked back through the slushy snow in silence, the sounds of the distant woodpeckers and bird calls echoing through the cold air. Several times he stumbled, his dragging feet catching a half-revealed root or a rock, but he didn’t care; His mind was focused on his sister, the sudden and agonizing distance between them, and a single thought that raged like thunder in his mind:

_I need to save her._

He came back within sight of the house, and Mia was still on the back porch, arguing with Grunkle Stan as he gestured in the direction Mabel had gone and swore at the CPS official. She was fuming, and snapped something back when she turned partially and caught sight of Dipper.

“Dipper! Dipper, I need to talk to you.”

 

He stopped in the middle of the small, muddy lot, snow beginning to sprinkle down gently as he glared at her. She approached, stopping a few feet away, meeting his gaze levelly. “Dipper, I’m sorry, but you two  _can’t_  just run like that. As much as you might beg to differ, neither of you are adults yet, and you need to be placed in the legal custody your  _parents_  appointed.”

The last barb of emphasis stung, and for a second Dipper’s anger flared internally to his Mom and Dad.  _Damn it, Grunkle Stan was a good caretaker, so why pick Grandma Oz? She’s almost senile, and comes down with some cold or another every week. How was she supposed to take care of us?_

He took a breath, trying to let go of the anger against them.  _Getting mad at them now won’t…won’t do anything,_  he thought glumly. His eyes flicked back up to Mia, who had been watching him carefully, and he could feel his hands ball in anger.  _Save your focus for the people who caused this fucking mess._

Mia continued, her tone like she was reprimanding a child,  _Which is probably exactly what she sees me as: A whiny angry child, throwing a tantrum._  “Now, your sister is being moved to a facility that can take good care of her while she finishes recovering under observation, and-”  _Observation? My sister isn’t a fucking lab animal._

“-Meanwhile, we’ll be working to transport you and your belongings to your grandmother’s residence-”  _Wow, that’s convenient,_  he thought wryly as she continued.  _Good thing it just so happens that I’ll be on the other side of the damn continent then, huh?_

Dipper was so engrossed in his fuming that it took him a moment to register the sound of car doors for the second time that day. A pair of police were approaching, but Dipper felt a moment of relaxation at seeing Sheriff Blubs and his deputy Durland;  _They must have heard the commotion, and wanted to see what was-_

“Ah, thank you for responding so quickly officers,” Mia said curtly. Dipper could see their regretful expressions, and as Blubs gave Dip an apologetic shrug, he could hear Mia say “Just bring him to the station, and I can have another State Patrol car come bring him to Corvallis for a flight to his new hom-”

Dipper didn’t think, didn’t puzzle it out, didn’t look at it with his normal detached analytical mind.

He felt like a caged beast, fresh out of options, and so he responded to his screaming instincts:

He ran.

Shoving Mia out of the way, he could hear her yell  _“Catch him!”_  as the two police stumbled into action to follow him.

Dipper was across the lot, up the porch, and pushing past Grunkle Stan, who held the door as he passed muttering so he could hear  _“Ford. Get Ford.”_  With that he was past, and into the living room. Orienting himself, he dove into the gift shop for the Mystery Shack, where Ford was just emerging from behind the vending machine, humming as he reached into a bag of Corncornos.

He stopped as Dipper skidded into the room, and from out on the porch Durland yelled for him to stop, pounding with a baton on the door. Ford looked up sharply at the cry, chips falling from his hand as he grabbed Dipper’s shoulder and shoved him down the stairs. He followed after Dipper, stopping to grab the chip bag as he yanked the machine shut.

From the other side, Dipper forced himself to breath slowly and quietly, his ears burning as he heard footsteps enter the shop.

_“Where’d he go, sheriff?”_

_“You got me. I thought we were right behind him.”_

Mia’s voice interjected.  _“He can’t have gotten far. We need to search the rest of the house; He might have gone upstairs or-”_

From the porch, Stan’s voice could be heard shouting.  _“No, Dipper wait! Come back! The woods are dangerous in the winter, and you-”_  The voice lowered as footsteps ran out of the shop in the direction of the porch.

Dipper smiled, and gave Ford a thumbs-up, illuminated by the faint lighting along the hidden stairwell. Ford smiled, his lips still thin and tight as he concentrated, and Dipper felt his heart jump as he heard another set of footsteps leave the gift shop; He hadn’t been paying attention to the number of feet leaving the shop, but he could almost see the annoyance on Mia’s face as her fading voice said  _“Typical.”_

Dipper let out a long, shuddering breath as he and Grunkle Ford descended the steps, the elevator rumbling as they landed on the lowest level. Most of the equipment down here had been dismantled or repurposed, but Dipper ran over to the periscope handle, jutting from the bottom of the totem pole in the parking lot above.

Through fish-eye lenses, he watched as Mia and the police ran back to their cars, and she silently yelled something and gestured towards the woods before pulling out of the parking lot. Dipper let out a sigh of relief, but as he went back towards the stairs, Ford’s hand grabbed his shoulder gently.

 _“Wait,_  Dipper,” he said quietly. “I highly doubt they were fooled that easily, that quickly. Best just to wait down here for a while, until things blow over.” Dipper stopped, and nodded, coming to sit on a cot in the cavern where the portal had once been.

  
  


It was hard to believe it was more than five years ago that the portal had opened, and Ford had come tumbling through. Stan had been heartbroken, nursing his brother back to health, and once he had regained consciousness and some of his strength, bringing Ford supplies he cobbled together to make the first of his prosthetic legs.

That had been at least four iterations of the leg ago, and Dipper could have sworn this one held some new lights and pistons he hadn’t seen last summer. When Mabel had brought up the professional options available, Ford had just chuckled.  _“That’s the problem with being dead: People don’t expect you to waltz into a hospital to get a fake leg fitted.”_

As for the people in town, while some of them may have had their suspicions, the two Stans were careful to not be seen together in public, and no-one outside of Wendy and Soos knew the truth. That had almost been ruined one summer, when they wore different garishly-clashing sweaters Mabel had-

 _Mabel._  The thought hit him like a punch in the gut, remembering her face as she disappeared, and he choked out a sob, coughing slightly in the dusty chamber. Ford looked over with sympathy in his eyes, but said nothing, and went back to working on fixing up an old radio set.

Dipper didn’t know how long he’d sat there, staring at the floor and running his mind through hundreds of fruitless scenarios to try and save Mabel. Each of them seemed to end with him getting arrested, hauled off to the other side of the country, or killed in the attempt.

“Hey Dipper; C’mere,” said Ford, a grim look on his face as he gestured Dipper towards the periscope. He looked through and squinted; the light of a half-dozen different police lights were strobing a pattern into his eyes, and he could faintly hear the sound of multiple sets of voices from far above.

Dipper sat back, and Ford gave him an encouraging look. “They’ll never find the entrance here, so no worries. I’ve got a few cans of food still, enough to last us three or four days; However long it takes for them to leave us well enough alone.”

Dipper took a can of beans and a relatively-clean spoon, and began eating in the silent near-darkness alongside his Grunkle.

  
  


As it turned out, they were gone in just two, the last car leaving from the lot and not returning. Dipper and Ford took turns watching for it, but after three or four hours, Stan came down the elevator to greet them. He gave his brother a hug, and turned to Dipper, saying “How’s he doing?”

Dipper hadn’t been doing well. He spent his time sleeping fitfully, eating cold canned vegetables and potted meats, pacing the cavern and the control area, but mostly worrying over Mabel. His cellphone had died the night before, as he kept it open and stared, waiting for a call that never came.

He didn’t dare call her; Her phones were always set to an ear-shattering ringtone, and he didn’t want them taking it from her. Mabel had been carrying around her old phone anyways, and Dipper held out hope that if they had searched her, they had confiscated that phone rather than her charged and ready one.

He shrugged to Stan, and Stan sighed in understanding. He turned to his brother, saying quietly “I, uh, I’ve got pancakes once you’re ready for some food, Dip.” Ford put a hand on Dipper shoulder, saying in a murmur “She’ll be all right, Dipper,” before following his brother up the elevator.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Dipper kicked out in rage, rattling a dusty set of green lockers and making his foot flare in pain. He let out an incoherent cry of frustration, storming off towards the portal chamber. Grabbing a rock, he flung it at the long-destroyed triangular chunk of the portal, where it bounced off with a dull  _clang!_

_If that was working, maybe I could have used it to save Mabel. It’s dangerous, sure, but if they decide to keep her in a lab for the rest of her life, it’d be worth the risk._

He fumed in a little circle, grabbing another rock to throw as he stopped; A stray memory, of something Grunkle Ford had said a few years back, had bubbled to the surface, insistently trying to remind him:

_“-and this madman had built, if you could believe it, a localized wormhole emitter! It was insanely dangerous, as the way he had built it used a marble-sized antimatter core that in no way had a sufficient containment field and the damned moron kept opening up holes on non-Euclidean surfaces or even in plain air, but he showed me it and it worked! He’d left before I could try and find my way back to our dimension, but in between burps he’d at least given me enough information to replicate the thing…someday, at least.”_

Grunkle Stan had interjected at that point, pointing out how much trouble the first portal was, and after a bit of discussion, Ford had hung his head in agreement that it was a foolish idea.

Dipper smiled.  _Why you clever old fart, you probably built the damn thing anyways._  Grunkle Ford was never one to let something tinkerable go untinkered, and Dipper began looking in drawers and boxes, frantically searching. His search was fruitless, however, and he was about to go upstairs when he stopped.

_Wait, Ford had said part of what made it so dangerous was that he was opening it up in midair. What if Grunkle Ford had made a stable, fixed portal?_

Dipper slowly turned, taking in the interior of the portal chamber and the control area before he stopped, noticing something. Wracking his mind, he tried to frantically recall, all those years ago when they’d first discovered the portal and Grunkle Stan’s secret plans.

_There wasn’t a green locker then, was there?_

He approached, cautiously, and looking over it with a newfound eye for details, he found a seam near the middle. He started to pull it apart, when it slid open with a hiss. Revealed inside was a metal ring, lined with electronics and in the dead center was what looked like a wide remote-control, a thick blue-white shimmering shield of energy the size of a golf ball embedded in the middle of the remote, and surrounding a pure-white pellet the size of a marble.

  
  


Dipper barged into the kitchen, where Stan and his brother were eating pancakes. The wind outside had whipped itself into a frenzy, air whistling through the gaps in the house, but the heat of the stove top had banished the worst of it when he came in.

Grunkle Ford greeted him first, waving part of a pancake on a fork as he said cheerfully “Hey Dipper, what’s-” before catching sight of the remote in Dip’s hand. His face fell as he let out a little defeated _“Oh,”_  his expression confirming Dipper’s fervent hopes.

Stan turned around from preparing his latest pancake, stopping and setting the frying pan aside on a dead stove burner as he caught sight of their faces. “Man, who killed the mood? Dipper, what’s that thing?”

He looked at the device in Dipper’s hand, and to his dejected brother, and before Dipper could respond, Stan had tossed his oven mitt to one side, striding over to stand in front of the table in front of his brother. In a dangerously quiet voice, he said “You built another portal, didn’t you. After all  _we’d_  been through, you built another one.”

Ford looked up abruptly, but as he started to protest with “Stanley, it was,  _is_  a breakthrough in science the likes of which mankind has never-” Grunkle Stan exploded.

“Mankind?  _Mankind?_  Dammit, Stanford, I nearly lost you; Hell, I  _did_  lose you, twice, all because of one of your damn science projects. And now you have a new one? You decided that, what, thirty  _years_  of being locked away from home was  _no big deal_  or something? And you go and build a new one in the basement of my  _house?”_

Grunkle Ford had stood up, refusing to look at Stan and instead walking into the living room as Stan followed and continued gesturing angrily, but he rounded on him at the last part.  _“Your_  house? Again with all of this, you think that by taking my  _name_  you also get to take my  _house?”_

Stan made a noise through hissed teeth, and raised his fist to punch Ford, but stopped, lowering it with a heavy, angry huff. In a muted voice, he said sharply “You’re right, Stanford. It is your house. Sorry to  _intrude.”_

He grabbed his worn, heavy brown winter coat from the hatstand, shrugging it on as he stepped out into the howling gale of the storm outside. He looked back once, before flipping up the furred hood and disappearing into the blizzard.

A second later, they could hear the engine of the recently-fixed  _Stanley Mobile_  turn over, and the car pull out of the parking lot and down the road. Grunkle Ford looked out the door, finally closing it as the tail lights faded. In a thick voice, he said “He’ll be back in the morning,” in a voice that sounded to Dipper like he was trying to fool himself more than his nephew. For cleared his throat, and then in a more firm tone said “Come with me.”

 

 

The initial startup of the portal had generated a sickly green swirling vortex of energy, but it quickly tinged with shades of pitch-black darkness, streaking it as it swirled. Dipper’s cell phone was jammed into a receiver on the base of the remote; Ford had said that he could call Mabel’s phone, and use the signal to pinpoint the other side of the portal.

Dipper was cramming supplies into a backpack, and had just finished putting Mabel’s grappling hook into a side pouch as he heard Ford say loudly “Dipper, it’s not stable! I can’t reduce the interstitial distance, and there’s still a multidimensional void between the two. I’m shutting it-”

 _“No!”_  Dipper yelled, running over to Ford. He paused, looking up at his nephew with eyes full of both understanding as well as fear. “Grunkle Ford, how far is the distance between the entrance and exit portal? How much void would I need to cross?”

Ford frowned, glancing down at a flashing display momentarily before doing a mental calculation and saying “Only a few feet.”

Dipper grinned, saying “Great!” as he bounded to the entrance of the portal. He was stopped by Ford grabbing his hand, the bandages removed and the grip feeling strange as Ford’s six fingers clung to his two.

“Dipper, please, for the love of god:  _Don’t.”_

Dipper turned to look at his Grunkle, and he saw a glimmer of naked terror, the likes of which he’d only seen a few times before, when Ford would awaken from one of his frequent nightmares, and the first time he had regained consciousness after being spat out from the portal, his leg a mangled bloody mess.

“There’s… _things_  in the void, Dipper. Terrible,  _terrible_  presences. Please, it’s too dangerous; Trust me, we’ll find another way.”

Dipper looked into his Grunkle’s pleading eyes, but could only remember Mabel, as she laughed and ran through the woods on the surface above them; As she danced, wearing a sweater and her familiar smile; As she cried, hugging him at night when the world was coming apart; As she screamed, wordlessly from behind the glass as she disappeared just a few nights before; Of her horrible silence, the nothingness from her, no calls, no dancing, no smiles.

_I’m never leaving you, Mabel. Never._

  
  


With a surety he hadn’t felt for days, he lets go of Ford’s hand, saying quietly “I’m sorry.”

Then Dipper turned and stepped through the swirling portal.


	7. Chapter 7

The emptiness of the void was worse than Dipper had ever imagined it would be, even after Ford’s pleading warning.

This was because, as Dipper felt himself being snatched, the other portal so close his fingertips passed through, he realized that the void was  _not_  a void.

It was occupied by a painfully familiar presence. As Dipper’s shoulder began to burn, blue unburning fire tracing the scars on the surface of the heavy parka, he could feel as two white orbs the color of bone and the size of planets rose from somewhere below his feet.

_‘’Ullo, child.”_

Dipper swore, the sound echoing and muting rapidly to his surprise; He had held his breath, expecting it to be a vacuum rather than humid, stiflingly hot and with air so dense it felt like he was swallowing water when he took a breath.

He ran his tongue along the line of his teeth instinctively, feeling the slightly-too-smooth cap of the implant that had replaced the one he’d lost those years ago. It had been part of a bargain, a trade with this being that had been upheld, but only just. Dipper had woken in cold sweats for months afterwards, his sister fretting over him as he screamed and thrashed his way into consciousness. The nightmares had only stopped a year or so ago, but he was sure they could return at any time to haunt him.

He had researched it, of course. Grunkle Ford hadn’t encountered this particular entity directly, but he’d found enough correlating evidence in the annals of the Society of the Blind Eye and a few old, dusty books he’d found on an online rare book dealer to put a title to the enormous creature that stared him down. Clearing the fear from his throat, in the strongest voice he could muster, Dipper named the beast:

_“Pact.”_

True, Dipper hadn’t expected a being like that to have a name that sounded so “normal,” expecting a string of unpronounceable syllables that would turn a brain to mush. _But then again, we sparred for the longest time with another demon named “Bill,” so there is that._ However, the eyes seemed to focus on him, burning a hole through his essence and making him feel like an insect, insignificant next to the-

_No, that’s his-…it’s power; It tries to scare you, goad you into a bargain, and that’s when the you’re well and truly fucked._

He sighed, again choking on the too-thick air and coughed as he tried to clear his mind. He made a swimming motion towards the far portal, and actually managed to gain a tiny shred of momentum, before he felt an ice-cold claw gently grab the tip of his boot, pulling him backwards to spin slowly and flail in frustration.

Where the claw released the boot, he could already see the rime of frost thawing, and again his shoulder twinged in memory. He looked up at the demon, or at least as best as he could as he spun, and then his gaze shifted to the exit portal, his sister somewhere beyond.

Pact noticed his gaze, or thoughts, or possibly both, and a thick, wet sound that Dipper vaguely recognized as a chuckle bubbled out of it, no mouth visible and the sound seemingly emanating from everywhere at once, while at the same time shrieking in the back of his mind like a razor blade to the back of his teeth.

_“Child again is seeking. Child again is desparate.”_

Dipper let out a furious noise, and couldn’t help the words bursting out: “Damn it, Pact, that’s because you keep fucking holding me  _back!”_  He thrashed and flailed, trying to swim fruitlessly towards the exit portal, and fully expecting his sliver of momentum to be thwarted by another icy claw.

But no claw came; It mattered little, as Dipper would take fifteen minutes to drift the twenty feet to the portal at this pace, but it was better than nothing. However, Pact shrank, from encompassing the entirety of the void in the darkness of its form to now just being a hulking shape, like Dipper had encountered in the cave years ago.

_“Child is raging. Pact understands rage. Child is ungrateful. Pact is confused.”_

If Dipper didn’t know any better, he’d swear the demon’s voice had become  _hurt._  He tried to ignore it, swimming towards the swirling portal, framed against blood-red twinkling stars now that Pact had diminished it’s form. The monster floated alongside him, milky dead eyes regarding him wordlessly for a moment, and it spoke again.

_“Child forgets the waterfall. Child forgets the chimera.”_

As it spoke, the memories flashed to Dipper’s memory; Falling over a waterfall, about to smash onto the rocks when…he missed, falling into the water by mere inches when he was  _sure_  he was about to die; Stumbling as he tried and failed to dodge out of the way of the draconic mouth of a chimera at the base of the handwitch’s mountain, the teeth biting down…on mere air, clacking and avoiding his vulnerable belly, again by just the thinnest of margins.

A thought began to unpleasantly tickle Dipper’s mind, of something Ford had said:  _“Well, the guardian is suspected to be fae-”_

_“Child forgets his guardian.”_

Dipper’s stomach dropped unpleasantly with the implications, remembering unbidden a dozen other times since his shoulder had first been branded, times when he was sure he was going to be mangled or killed yet escaped unharmed and alive.

He could feel an unpleasant tickling sensation in his head, and shook it, but the creature already had the information it needed. It gestured, a razor-thin pane of ice forming from where it swept its claws a few feet in front of Dipper. In the frost formed a perfect picture of Mabel’s face, exactly as it had been in that last glimpse as the police car vanished from his sight.

He choked back a sob at the sight as Pact spoke again, this time the voice definitely laden with a clashing, alien note of false sympathy.

_“Child’s other half is missing. Child is almost able to save her.”_

With a moan, Dipper could hear distant shouting ringing harshly in his ears; Ford’s voice, laden with worry as he called out _“I’m sorry Dipper, but it’s collapsing! I tried to keep it open as long as I could but the power drain has almost depleted the antimatter! I-I’ll try to send help, somehow, as soon as I can…”_

He could see the portals flicker for a brief moment, and could feel his mind racing in a panic. _Last time I encountered it, Pact left me outside, almost unharmed. How do I know this is real?_

 _But then again, can we afford to do nothing?_ His research said Pact was unable to harm mortals outside the boundaries of one of its titular bargains,  _but that doesn’t mean it won’t just leave me here to float endlessly if the portals collapse._

Worse, individual accounts he’d found had mentioned meeting Pact once and then twice, but in all his searching, he couldn’t find a single witness who’d successfully made three bargains with the demon. _One bargain down,_ he thought, feeling the edge of the false tooth again,  _but I don’t want to risk grisly demonic death if should actually be fucked enough to need to willingly call on this bastard one day._

Then he heard another voice, this one soft, sleepy, and filled with both hope as well as confusion.

 _“Dipper?”_  he could hear Mabel say, her voice sounding like she was close enough to reach out and grab her.

_If Pact is lying to you, and you make no bargains, you’ll be able to save her._

_If Pact is telling the truth and you make a bargain, you’ll be able to save her._

_But if Pact is telling the truth now, and you make no bargains, Mabel is lost._

_Forever._

Dipper closed his eyes, tears streaming to float off uselessly as he gritted his teeth. Beside him, Pact uttered the phrase Dipper knew was coming as soon as the demon caught him

_“Child is willing to make a trade?_

Hatred for the demon filled his mind, his heart, as he uttered a single terse phrase, echoing with the memory of the first time he had said it.

“I offer a tooth.”

Pact made a rumbling pleased noise, and one of the ice-cold claws pierced through the soft flesh of Dipper’s throat, twisting as the lance of pain screamed through his mind and the tooth was wrenched from his mouth. The newly-exposed root in his mouth burned like acid, and he let out a keening animal wail of pain, again choking on both the humid, thick air as well as the blood now choking his mouth.

He could hear the _tink_ of the tooth landing on a pile of so many others, but could not see Pact hiding its new prize. Still, the entity swooped to face Dipper, who had both hands over his mouth and throat, trying to quench the bleeding.

_“Child is still a fool.”_

Pact seemed to spin, an enormous oily tail coated in greasy feathers slamming into Dipper’s chest, shattering ribs and sending him hurtling into the portal.

 

 

He landed in a heap, breathing heavily. Behind Dipper, the portal glowed and hummed a merry green, flush against a teal wall and across from set of cabinets on the far wall. He looked up, noting a tiny sticker that read  _“PROPERTY OF U.C. DAVIS MEDICAL CENTER”_ on the side of the cabinet.

Then he felt a flare of pain on his throat and the taste of blood in his mouth, and his hands immediately went to his neck, eyes widening in shock. Dip’s shoulder was burning merrily, but that was no surprise to him compared to his hand coming away speckled with red. He gingerly probed the injuries, pokes producing a slight pain but nothing incapacitating, and the blood on his hands nowhere near enough to be dangerous.

Still, where Pact had cut him in the void, Dipper had shallow slices, and the gap of his missing tooth tasted of blood, throbbing tenderly when he poked it experimentally with his tongue.

 _Well, if this experience compared to the first time is anything to go by, I think calling on Pact in the future is entirely out of the question._ Dipper had skimmed over the bits of the texts he found describing that summoning ritual; He had no desire to tempt fate then, and now he had even less of a wish to do so.

Getting to his feet, Dipper grabbed something from his backpack, letting the weight heft into his coat pocket, before beginning to check through the cabinet marked  _“5th Floor Patients”_ in front of him on a hunch. Sure enough, the third drawer yielded Mabel’s possessions; A puffy pink sweater, emblazoned with a golden star in the shape of a sunburst, her worn shoes, and her cell phones, both of them.

His throat tight with both relief at finding these belongings and worry at her condition, Dipper stuffed the sweater, shoes, and phones into his backpack before turning to look at the portal.

With a wet  _thwip,_  it disappeared.

 _Well fuck,_  he thought with a pang of sudden terror, _there goes plans A through G. Guess Pact wasn’t lying this time._ Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Dip took a quick peek out the door before pushing it open.

The digital clock on the wall was telling him it was about eight-thirty in the morning, on Sunday the 24th of December.  _Night before Christmas, and all through the hospital, not a creature was stirring, except for a sibling trying to break his sister out,_ he thought, snorting at the ridiculousness.

A few times he had to duck to one room or into a supply closet when he heard an approaching orderly, but for the most part the corridors were empty, and patients had their curtains drawn or were soundly sleeping. Dipper began to grit his remaining teeth in frustration.

 _Where in the hell could she-oh._ He saw a security guard, leaning against a wall and munching a breakfast burrito, the bag at his feet proudly displaying a motif for Hermanos Brothers. Dipper smiled grimly: _If there was a criminal in there, they’d have a cop on duty. But just a security guard? That’s someone they just want to keep under watch, and I suspect I know who “they” are._

He ducked around to the nurse station as the nurse strode past, muttering something about a “laughably small bladder.” Dipper pulled open the cabinet marked  _“Current,”_ and flipped through to the ‘P’ section.

Internally, he wanted to jump and whoop as he pulled out  _“Pines, Mabel_ ” from the cabinet, but altogether too aware of the security guard a handful of feet away, he crept back around the corner, ducking inside an empty room and flipping open her sheet.

_“Patient: Pines, Mabel_

_Room: 509”_

A quick peek out confirmed that was indeed the room the guard was leaning against.

_“Condition: Stable; Recovering from severe burns to posterior head, torso, and right leg. Per Drs. Wetchee and Pallup, prototype skin gun was utilized. Prognosis appears to be fully successful; Please refer to attached notes.”_

Dipper flipped to them, and skimmed the pages of hand-scrawled notes. He could feel a pang of anger as he saw a sheaf of pictures of her bare form, focused on her back and the burns, but the humiliation and defeat in her face was evident from any angle that caught it.

He snapped the folder shut, tucking it under one arm as he felt in his pocket for the familiar weight of what he’d “borrowed” from Grunkle Stan, and stepped around the corner. The guard saw him, letting out a brief “Hey, wait, you can’t-” before stopping and taking a step back as Dipper removed his hand from the coat pocket, wrapped around the cold heft of a pistol.

He gestured to one side, and the guard complied, hands raising tentatively as Dipper stepped inside, before jamming a chair under the door knob and pocketing the gun. Immediately the guard grabbed for his radio and began banging on the door, but Dipper was more preoccupied with his sister, murmuring as she awoke on the gurney.

“Dip?” she said, yawning and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes;  _Dammit,_  he thought as he saw her grogginess,  _what kind of shit have they been pumping into you Mabes?_ Dipper just let out a breath in an almost-laugh, and hugged her, his face wet as he murmured  _“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’ll never leave you again.”_

In response, she just said his name, returning the hug as he heard her laugh quietly once again.

 

 

A long few seconds passed before the shattering of a window brought Dipper back to reality. The guard had almost gotten a wide enough gap to barge through, and so Dipper pulled out the gun again, pointing it towards him, his hands shaking for a moment  before steadying.

The guard wasn’t watching, and rammed the door open, stumbling a step into the room before taking a half-step towards the gap between Dipper and his sister’s bed. Dipper raised the pistol, feeling his heart race until he saw Mabel, eyes wide, silently shake her head slightly from behind the guard.

Part of him thrashed in rage, but with a sigh, he gave Mabel a loving look as he lowered his hands. The guard took a step forward and-

_SMASH!_

Mabel was leaning forward, almost out of her gurney, and had cracked the glass IV drip bottle against the back of the guard’s head. The guard’s eyes rolled back in his head as he toppled with a groan, leaving Dipper to look slack-jawed at his sister. She smiled, and took a step over to the room’s supply cabinet, opening the door beneath the inbuilt sink, and pulling out a bottle to show him.

“Late yesterday evening I managed to wake up enough to stumble over here, and swapped their dumb sleepy drugs with just plain saline,” she said with a smile and a triumphant tone. Dipper gave his twin an appreciative thumbs-up, his mouth still agape, and after a moment he remembered himself and tossed her the bag with her clothes in it.

Mabel let out a little squeal, and quickly changed, Dipper looking away out of modesty, and feeling a pang of regret at the sight of her scarred back as he did. _If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t be in this stupid mess in the first place. She wouldn’t be scarred, I’d still have my hand, and maybe we wouldn’t be breaking into goddamn hospitals._

Mabel finished getting changed and Dipper had zipped up and put his backpack on; At Mabel’s insistence, he had put the gun in the pack. “Brobro,” she had said afterwards, tapping his head gently with her trusty grappling hook, “Since when did we need anything other than our wits and a handy shrinky-grow crystal or magical photocopier to fix everything?”

Dipper let out a regretful chuckle, too embarrassed and worried about what she would think to tell her how close he’s been to pulling the trigger, when they heard loud footsteps, and a cry of  _“Police! Put your hands in the air!“_

The twins complied, and a second later they could see several officers, guns drawn and approaching. They slowed when they caught sight of Mabel, and one of them practically screamed “Drop the weapon!  _NOW!”_

Mabel sighed, rolling her eyes as she opened her hand and let the grappling hook drop. In a quiet, annoyed voice, she muttered “It’s a grappling hook, not a gun. _Doy.”_  Dipper smiled; Even at a time like this, Mabel was still Mabel.

One of the police gave a shouted order to get on their stomachs, and as Dipper dropped to one knee, he caught a glimpse of Mabel’s medical file he’d grabbed earlier, dropped when he entered the room. He was about to ignore it and continue dropping when he noticed some notes under the section marked  _“Dental.”_

The entry _“Patient stated she had braces, but they were removed in October 2014”_  was no surprise to Dipper; Mabel had proceeded to order more sticky caramel and taffy then Dipper would or could eat in a year, and merrily consumed it all in a span of a week and a half.

What caught his eye was the entry below it:  _“Patient x-ray shows presence of tooth implant. Patient stated it was removed following breakage in May 2016.”_

He could feel a rushing in his ears, as he remembered that day, just a few days after they had arrived in Gravity Falls last summer. Mabel had come in from running around outside, complaining that she’d chipped her tooth. Dad was there, as he’d wanted to come see the Mystery Shack again for the first time in years, and so he’d raced her down to the dentist. Mabel had given him a big smile afterwards, and said it had chipped, but they’d been able to glue it back to almost-as-good-as-new.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t actually  _shown_  him the “chipped” tooth beforehand.

 

 

Dipper looked up, as his sister continued to stand, ignoring the shouted commands of the police as they approached the door. Instead, she smiled, and spoke, her eyes glowing as she recited  _“Bt mhb'ks gntfcbbuz hvbz vfstanfs, moxb mhb'ks wg yxozef wssi zawh.”_

Time seemed to slow to a crawl, almost stopping entirely as their surroundings seemed to grow stark-white, as if affected by a bad picture filter. As Dipper looked around, the nature of the shift in color became apparent: The shadows had all streamed away, flowing into a rising cloud of little flapping feathers as they coalesced into a single, terrible shape.

_“‘Ullo again, child.”_


	8. Chapter 8

Mabel stood tall, hands akimbo on her hips as she stared down the demon. Pact had slithered over to loom over her, as she quietly said “Hello again, Pact.”

Dipper made a little quiet noise, full of forlorn worry as he let out a strangled “Mabel,  _why?”_  She just looked back at him, giving him a sad smile and a slight shrug. “Sorry brobro, but I couldn’t think of another way out, and you were making your “I’ll-fight-the-world” face again.”

Dipper shook his head, saying “No, not-Mabel, I saw your medical records and…and they mentioned the fake tooth.”

Mabel’s eyes widened for a moment, as she let out a guilty “ _Oh.”_  Behind her, Pact had steepled it’s clawed fingers, silently watching the exchange with unblinking eyes as drips of shadow fell off it and evaporated on the washed-out linoleum.

 

“Mabel, what the fuck could possibly be worth making a bargain with _that-_ ” Mabel cut him off as she strode over, finger ready to give him a hard poke in the chest, but as he tensed and squinted his eyes, he could feel her tender touch under his chin, lifting his eyes to meet hers.

 _“You,_ ya dork,” she said with soft admonishment. Dipper squinted in confusion before she continued. “You were waking up with nightmares almost every night, and…and Dipper, they were getting worse towards the end. A lot worse.”

He shivered; She was right. At first the nightmares had just been of his death, pain and suffering and agony that jolted him awake, but then it shifted to leaving him untouched, watching as those loved ones around him suffered instead as he lay helpless.

He had been so thankful that the nightmares had stopped that he stupidly hadn’t thought to ask  _why._

She gave him a little half-hearted smile. “I remember you mentioning there was a ritual to summon Pact, and so after the second night we were in the Shack, I memorized the incantation, and ran off to do it the next day.”

Dipper looked confused, his eye looking from his shoulder to his sister. “So why don’t you have an ominously-painful scar then?”

At this point Pact reminded them of its presence, its voice oozing from just a few feet behind Mabel, making her shriek and spin around as Dipper groaned at hearing and feeling that awful wet chuckle again.

_“Child was polite. Child was proper. Child needed no brand from Pact.”_

Mabel looked back to Dipper, her eyes uncertain, and he just murmured quietly to her “Well, I don’t think Pact will just resume time if we ask politely, and in any case,” he said, looking at the almost-frozen police suspended in a shimmering nebula of broken window glass, “I don’t want to think of the possibilities if we stay here.”

She nodded, biting her lip and rubbing her arm as he gave her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, ignoring the burning pain from his own. “Just make sure you’re clear with your bargain with that bastard. Last thing we want is to be separated again.” He gave her hand a tight squeeze he spoke, his eyes burning with worry for his sister.

She nodded, her expression firm with conviction, as she turned to the waiting demon. It offered her a clawed hand, as it spoke with an air of formality.

_“What is the child’s desire?”_

“I want my brother and I to be taken home, safe and unharmed; Together,” she said, giving Dip a slight smile before turning back to face Pact.

“ _And what does the child offer in trade?”_

Mabel sighed, and muttered *“Well, so much for four years of braceface” *to Dipper, causing him to give a small nervous grin as the temporary amusement clashed with his anxiety over what his twin was doing.

“I offer a tooth in trade.”

Pact lunged for Mabel, causing Dipper to begin to lurch forward, his hand outstretched to stop the monster from brutalizing her as it did him.

But instead, it had carefully pulled the tooth, no blood visible, and Mabel looking worried but not in pain or agony. While a little pang of jealousy ran through him as the cuts on his neck stung in reminder, he mostly felt a cold wash of relief flow through him. Pact turned, opening the abominable fleshy mouth and depositing his sister’s tooth onto the awaiting heap, before turning to face the twins.

Almost serenely, it opened the palms of its greasy hands to the bleached sky, the eyes swivelling to the twins as it spoke one last time.

_“Child is still naive.”_

Then Pact swirled, and sank into a puddle, which split and raced along the floor to pool at the twins’ feet. Dipper let out a yelp, trying and failing to pull his leg away from the black morass enveloping it as Mabel let out a whimper and began to breath through her nose; Dipper realized she was trying to calm herself, trusting the demon to uphold its bargain, and Dipper tried and failed to slow his own racing heart.

As the crawling, tickling, slick mass slid over his face and into his mouth, Dipper let out a wordless scream as he felt the world drop out from under his feet and the darkness coated his eyes.

  
  


He leaned up, coughing and retching, and began looking around frantically. His eyes fell on Mabel, slumped over in a fetal position, and- _She’s not breathing, oh god, she’s not-_

She let out a cough, gagging as Dipper had as she sucked in lungfuls of sweet, cold air. He let out a breath of relief, hugging her close as she grabbed him. He could hear her say quietly, full of regret “I”m sorry Dip, I should have told you. It’s-it’s just that you were finally happy,” she said, drawing in a shuddering breath.

“Or happier, happier than you’d been in so long. I knew that if you found out about the tooth and…and Pact, you would have gone right back into a funk. I like my Dipper decidedly non-funky and relaxed.” Dipper gave a chuckle, pulling back to smile at his sister. Her apprehensive expression melted into a matching smile, and she giggled in response.

He punched her arm, but then wagged an admonishing finger under her nose. “Alright, but we seriously  _can’t_ do that again, alright?” His voice was slightly mocking, but held a hard edge; They’d both called on Pact twice, and Dipper wasn’t keen on the eternal imprisonment and/or horrible death that befell whoever made a third pact with the creature.

She nodded slowly, her face conveying that she understood the gravity of the situation that had befell them. She got to her feet, tugging her sweater from around her waist to don it over the tanktop, and offered Dipper a hand up. Getting used to just using the two fingers in a grip had been difficult, and felt alien even with Mabel’s familiar hand, but he managed to hoist himself to his feet.

Looking around, Dipper let out a sigh of relief. The pine trees confirmed that they were in Gravity Falls, or at the very least probably somewhere in Oregon. Mabel’s terms for the bargain had been _far_ more vague than Dipper would have preferred, and he was glad they hadn’t been transported to Grandma Oz’s house, or the ruins of…of their parent’s house in Piedmont.

He gave Mabel a thumbs-up. “Hey, I think we’re in the right spot,” he said with a chuckle. Mabel grinned ear to ear, and nodded, pointing towards the distant tip of the Gravity Falls water tower. Then she turned back to Dipper, a slightly guilty expression on her face as she said “Yeah, I realized after I spoke that I might not have told Pact as clearly as I should have. As we were getting all shadowed-up, I was worried that because of the “Together” bit he was gonna smush us together like some kind of mutant on arrival.”

Dipper remembering seeing exactly that when they’d faced the shapeshifter, shuddered in revulsion at the memory. Still, he laughed when Mabel poked him, causing him to flinch and chuckle. “But it looks like the Mipper Beast will have to wait for another day,” she said, giggling and running towards the town, her arms trailing the flapping sleeves as she ran down the hill towards the sounds of the town.

“Mipper Beast? What’s-Mabel, wait up!” He laughed and ran down after his sister, and they entered downtown Gravity Falls.

 

 

The sun had well and truly finished setting as the twins made it to the first paved street. Dipper was silently worrying about how much time had passed, since the snow drifts that had been piled around town were far smaller than they had been. He was looking around, when he saw a stack of the  _Gravity Falls Gossiper,_  the headline marked as… _December 15th, 2017. The night of the earthquake._

_The quake hasn’t happened yet._

His heart raced as he grabbed Mabel, ignoring her confused protest as he shoved the paper in his face.  _“Mabes!_ The quake, we-Pact sent us back before the quake!”

His two-fingered hand shook with excitement as he ran it through his dirty hair, looking around wildly. The ruddy glow of a bank sign flashed the temperature, and then the time. _Oh shit,_ he thought as he saw the clock display and his heart plummeted.  _It’s…it’s going to happen any minute now._

Mabel was already fumbling through her pocket, pulling out the pink kitty phone, cursing when the  _“No Battery”_  indicator flashed and it shut itself off. Then her other hand grabbed and extracted the new cell phone, a pair of bars winking for both battery and reception.

With fingers flying, Mabel mashed in a number, and she leaned heavily against the stone storefront, Dipper huddling in close, hugging her tightly with one arm. The phone rang once, twice, three times, and Dipper shut his eyes tightly as he heard his mom’s voice.

_“Hello? Who is this?”_

Mabel let out a little squeak, choking out “Mom, it’s me;  _us!_  It’s Mabel and Dipper.”

Their mom’s confusion registered clearly even with the crackling connection. “ _Mabes? Honey, what’s wrong? You sound upset; Is everything ok with Auntie Joe and Uncle Vern?”_

Dipper let out a wry snort that dissolved into a sniff, and he chimed in. “They’re…they’re ok, Mom.” From below his feet, he could feel a slight vibration, like if Manly Dan’s truck was passing over the empty road.

“Mom?  _Mom?”_  he said, an edge of desperation in his voice as his mother’s confused tone returned.  _“Honey? Honey, it’s just a small earthquake. Whatever is the matter over there?”_

Mabel broke back in, and Dipper could see the glittering tears rolling down her cheeks in the cold night air. “Mom, is Dad there too?”

 _“Yeah, honey, let me get him on the phone_.” He could tell their mother’s worry was still raging, but a second later they heard their dad’s voice, their mother’s occasional worried comment in the background sounding like she was just beside him. In the background, there was a smashing sound of a plate or cup shattering.

_“Hey kiddo, might need to make this quick; We need to secure some of those artistic ceramics your mom has on the mantle before they get dashed to pieces too.”_

Mabel looked at Dipper, and attempting to clear his tightening throat, he and his sister said in sad, longing unison “We love you guys.”

There was a moment of silence, static from the other end, and for a horrified second Dipper thought they’d been too late. Then their dad’s heavy sigh came back, a tone of understanding in it as he said *“We love you guys too,” *their mother echoing the words from the background a minute later.

Mabel choked out a sob, and Dipper hugged her close as their Dad cooed to them from the other end of the call. _“Aww, koala bear, it’ll be all right. Shh, shh, everything will be all right.”_

Their mother took up the phone after a second, and Dipper could tell her voice was colored by tears and anxiety as she said  _“Alright kids, we’ve got to go and hold down the fort, but be safe and stick together, you hear? Be-”_

The call clicked off, a dull buzzing tone for a moment before a synthetic female voice chimed in with  _“Service Unavailable; Call Lost. Please Try Again In A Little While.”_

Dipper and Mabel stood in the middle of the empty street, road rumbling beneath them as buildings swayed and cracked on either side, the twins hugging each other close for the rest of the night.

  
  


They had bought some cans of food from the corner store the next morning, before making their way towards Grunkle Ford’s old bunker in the woods. Mabel had initially wanted to go directly to their Grunkles, but Dipper had advised against it; Given their previous run-ins with Blendin, he wanted nothing to do with manipulating time more than they already had, and his sister agreed, eventually.

They spent the next week underground, eating beans, watching reruns of Duck Detective on the a crappy old TV set Ford had in the bunker’s control area. Mostly, though, the time was spent in silence, the twins holding each other close for what little comfort and stability they could provide the other.

Dippre shuddered as he remembered the walk back to the bunker the morning after the quake. They had passed by a pond in the forest, but Mabel had grabbed him, pointing when the pond froze over rapidly. Swirled letters formed in the ice, the script looking like it was carved using a blade rather than written.

_“Naive child, this was a gift._

_Foolish child, this was a punishment._

_Balance is restored, the debts paid in full.”_

Below that had appeared four images: Teeth, Dipper supposing they were their own. He turned to look away, and saw Mabel, still staring in shock at the message long after reading it. Dipper looked back, and let out a roaring groan of frustration as he hurled a rock into the pond, smashing the wafer-thin ice into a thousand pieces that melted in the frigid water.

That broke the spell, and Mabel looked up, giving him a shrug before lightly punching his arm, and they continued to the bunker. Mabel had nimbly sprung up the tree, yanking the branch to trigger the stairs, and they’d descended in silence.

At the end of the week, they ventured out, but Dipper didn’t lead them directly to the Mystery Shack, despite Mabel’s protests. “Why aren’t we going right over? I’ve been-been taken, and you said you’ve probably entered the portal by now, so there’s no time shenanigans to worry about, right? Right, brobro?”

Her tone softened towards the end upon seeing his expression of apprehension, and he let out a sad murmur of acknowledgement as he saw what he was waiting for; Across the street, the  _Stanley Mobile_  had pulled into the parking lot of the Happy Aardvark Motel, the engine shutting off but no-one leaving the vehicle.

After a long moment, Dipper got to his feet, saying “Alright,  _now_ we can go. I just had to make sure he was safe too.”

Mabel, understanding now, nodded quietly, and they began the long walk to the Shack.

 

 

Grunkle Ford had been sitting inside, the door unlocked as he tinkered with something on the kitchen table, surrounded by various strewn parts and pieces. As he heard the creak of the hallway, he spun round, saying “Stanley, oh  _god_  Stanley, I’m so-” before stopping when he saw them.

The piece in his hands fell to the floor with a clatter; *The remote, * Dipper noticed. He came over and grabbed them both in a wide bear hug, muttering into their shoulders. Dipper realized with shock that his fingertips were red, raw from working frantically on the repairs he was evidently trying to make.

“Oh god Dipper, I’m so sorry.” Ford said, drawing his head back to look at his niece and nephew. “I tried keeping it stable as long as I could, but the antimatter ran short, and when I tried using the Gravity Falls power grid I caused two brownouts before the fuse blew and-I’m so glad you two are  _safe.”_

The twins exchanged a look of apprehension with each other as Ford squeezed them both into a hug, and Dipper could silently tell his twin was agreeing with him:  _We tell him nothing about Pact._

  
  


The following morning they rapped a plate against the foggy window of the  _Stanley Mobile,_  and after a mumbling of annoyance from inside, the window rolled down, Grunkle Stan’s bleary eyes looking back. They widened and his brow furrowed in confusion as he saw Ford, standing next to his car in the middle of the empty parking lot, holding a plate of steaming pancakes and flanked by the twins.

“I, uh, I’ve never been the best at cooking, Stanley, so these are actually from Greasy’s. Still, I… Uh, I wanted to say…I’m sorry.”

There was a long moment of tense silence, before Stan’s arm reached out of the car window to grab the plate. There was the sound of a knife and fork on plate, and then an overly-annoyed cry of “Hey, where’s the syrup?”

Ford’s chuckling joined the twins’ laughter, and as Stan joined in the laughter, he got out of the car, giving his brother a hug. A few seconds later they both looked up, eyes straight forward as they rigidly embraced, and slapped their hand against the other’s back twice in unison, accompanying it with a unified “Pat, pat,” before breaking the embrace to more laughter.

When Ford said something sheepishly and quietly to his brother, Stan threw his head back in a belly laugh Dipper hadn’t seen for years, the beautiful morning sun catching a glint of gold from his Grunkle’s fillings. Dipper sighed, and hugged Mabel with a hand around her side that she returned as they watched their Grunkles start bickering amicably about something.

They were finally home.

They were finally safe.

They were finally together.

_And nothing will ever tear us apart again._

  
  


**FIN.**


End file.
